A Sword's Myth
by NoodlesAndRice
Summary: Having just had his first taste of a life or death battle, Shirou Emiya was prepared to begin walking down the path of a Hero of Justice in the world. What he wasn't prepared for was being flung to a completely different world, where he would be forced to immediately start his journey. Now as Shirou joins the ranks of Orario's rookie adventurers, what kind of myth will he write?
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer:_ I don't own Fate/Stay Night or Danmachi.

The following contains spoilers for Fate/Stay Night's fate route, don't say I didn't warn you.

* * *

The telltale signs of a new dawn dyed the sky a brilliant gold, illuminating the figure of a single young man standing by a lakeside. Equally golden eyes stared back at the light of the rising sun; the teenager had a head of auburn hair, and was dressed in a long-sleeved blue and white baseball shirt and a pair of jeans.

Numerous small wounds were scattered across his body, and bits of clothing were torn off. His surroundings spoke of a grueling battle, one that left behind deep gouges on the earth, uprooted trees, and the shattered remains of a temple.

This individual was Shirou Emiya, the victor of the Fifth Holy Grail War. What stood around him were the remains of the final battle that decided the outcome of the clash.

The Holy Grail War was an otherworldly event that pitted him against six other participants, each vying for the chance to obtain the Holy Grail and the unlimited wish that came with it. With heroes of old, all wielding unimaginable abilities of mass destruction, summoned as servants to fight alongside the participants, the battle was one filled with pain, bloodshed, and grief. The two-week war had pushed both Shirou's mind and body to the very limits, and forced them well beyond that point.

 _Painfully sliding to a halt atop a jagged layer of asphalt, he absentmindedly shifted his gaze down to the traces of blood he saw on his peripheral vision—and was welcomed to the sight of bits of his organs and bones through the gaping hole in his own torso, with the remainder coating the dull-gray axe sword held by the giant before him._

Every moment was one that could spell death, and every decision was one that would determine his survival. Any normal person would have long since crumpled under the weight, either dying early, or living long enough to end up with a shattered mind, and no hope of ever leading a normal life.

But Shirou Emiya was no normal person—he was someone who had long since lost everything that would have made him one.

 _Emotions, instincts, memories; everything was cast aside by the boy in order to take even one more step, to ensure even one more second of survival within the fiery blaze from hell that surrounded him._

Before the war he was but an empty shell, a physical ghost who merely went through the motions of daily life by imitating others around him. The fight for the Holy Grail reinvigorated that empty shell, bestowing it with purpose.

 _"Rejoice young man, for your wish will finally come true." Lifeless eyes that could see straight through the soul gazed down at the teenager. With words that spoke of a moment that had already come to pass, the solemn priest beckoned him through the doors of the church, and out into the event that would define his very life._

He openly spat at those who would dare jeopardize the lives of innocents in a war, just for the chance to fulfill their own selfish desires. But deep down he knew that the war was something that he himself also desired, perhaps more so than anyone else.

 _Illuminated by the light of a full moon, a man and a boy sat side by side atop a veranda._

 _"You're an adult now, so you can't do it. But I can!" Excitedly swaying his legs, the boy looked up towards the full moon. "Leave it to me… Your dream."_

To everyone else, the Holy Grail was the goal. But to Shirou Emiya, the war itself was his one and only reason for fighting. It was the opportunity he had been waiting for his whole life, the chance to atone for his sins and to fulfill the dreams passed on by a dying man. It was his chance to save others, just as he was saved.

The conflict had reignited the flickering embers of the legacy he had inherited on that night, breathing life into his being in a way that peaceful everyday life never could. But that alone wasn't enough to fix him. The dream he had inherited and practiced was something that he clung onto out of desperation, for he had nothing else to call his own.

If left on his own, Shirou Emiya would have continued to endlessly pursue that dream, never deriving true accomplishment or worth from it, but never finding anything else that could fill the gap in his very being.

The final piece that completed the shattered puzzle came in the form of the servant Saber that fought alongside him.

 _"Shirou, I… love you."_

A petite blonde-haired girl, whose fragile appearance belied an unimaginable strength. A girl he had known only for the last fourteen days, yet one he had come to treasure more than any second before that.

Make no mistake, the things that Shirou Emiya had lost in that fiery blaze were integral parts of his being, ones that could never be perfectly brought back. Just as each person has unique characteristics that they can call their own, to replicate everything that once made him who he was would be asking for the impossible.

What lay on the pedestal that once made up his identity was no remnant of the "Shirou" who died all those years ago, but instead "Arturia Pendragon": The servant he had summoned and fought with in the war, the Once and Future King of Britain.

Through the struggles that he went through with her, the dreams and memories that he exchanged with her, and the love he shared with her, Shirou came to find solace in one whose feelings and motivations were so eerily similar to his own.

Through encouraging the disillusioned King to look beyond her lingering regrets, he too found something to strive for other than the dream he inherited.

Saber had already faded away, returned to a distant past and far away destination that the lone teen had no hope of ever reaching in his lifetime—an unavoidable decision that had to be made to end the war.

There were no regrets. Forcing her to stay by his side would have meant going back on everything he so desperately tried to convey to her. It would have meant rejecting Saber's resolve to finally put her burdens to rest.

"Yea, that's right." Speaking as if the wind would carry his words through time and space, Shirou conveyed his final message to the distant figure. "Your journey has finally come to an end, Saber. All you can do now is wait."

A gentle wind rustled through the lakeside, as if signaling that the message was sent. "What you went through in life and after, my own experiences can't possibly compare. I still have a long way to go before I can reach you."

Forcibly expelling any lingering feelings of heartache, the young man resolutely looked ahead into the sun. "Wait for me Saber. I'll live my life without regrets, the only way I know how."

Images of a silver moon, of a fatigued yet content man filtered through Shirou's mind. "I'll do it, I'll fulfill Kiritsugu's wish."

Clenching his fist, the victor of the Fifth Holy Grail War reaffirmed his resolve.

"I'll become a hero of justice."

What was once a gentle breeze abruptly turned into a violent hurricane. The sky, which was gradually brightening with daylight, was suddenly plunged back into the abyss of night.

Caught off guard by the sudden change, Shirou failed to notice the black mud creeping towards him in time, and promptly found himself sinking knee-deep into the ground.

"Gah!" Barely managing to grab onto solid ground, the teenager desperately hung on with all his might.

"W-What's going on?! Saber should've already destroyed the grail!" Shirou spat out in between labored breaths. Using both arms, he frantically tried to lift himself out of the mud. But no matter how much the teen struggled, the mud fought back just as desperately, dragging him lower and lower into the ground, and leaving no room for resistance.

Flailing about in a last-ditch attempt to escape, Shirou happened to catch sight of a small white-haired girl sleeping peacefully a few meters ahead, well away from the encroaching mud and in complete ignorance of the mayhem around her.

 _Ah, at least Illya is okay._

And then there was darkness.

* * *

Deep in the pits of a silent remote area, a lone fragment lay.

It's past and origin were things completely unknown to it, lost the moment it broke off from its original.

The earliest event it recalled was a blinding flash of light, a light that violently tore apart the vessel of its original, preventing it from fully manifesting. That same light was what gave birth to the fragment, separating it and leaving it isolated in a location far away from its main body.

In a greatly weakened state and without any support, the fragment would have vanished without a trace in just a few scant moments. But, just as what little consciousness it had was about to fade away completely, it sensed a wish.

The fragment had no eyes to see, no ears to hear, and no nerves to feel. All it had was the capacity to comprehend a wish, a wish that would give it form and enable it to fulfill its most basic instinct. To it, the sudden wish that was made was as bright as a star, and as loud as an eruption.

The wish wasn't even something directed towards the fragment, nor was it one that truly originated from the individual who uttered it. But that was of irrelevance. A wish was conveyed, and that was all that mattered.

It grasped that wish in a frenzy, focusing all of its being towards the one who made that wish. Summoning every ounce of its strength, and calling forth every drop of residual mana in the air, the fragment managed to successfully reach the source and grant the wish.

Under normal circumstances, the fragment would have taken that wish and distorted it, intentionally warping the wish into its most vile, malevolent form, and used that wish to wreck havoc upon the world. But, weakened and lacking proper cognitive function as it was, the fragment had no such luxury.

All it could do was grant the wish as soon as it possibly could, in the hopes that doing so would enable it to maintain its form and being.

Alas, the fragment retained only but a fraction of its true ability. What should have enabled it to unleash the full extent of All The World's Evil upon humanity had merely caused the wisher to be transported away, and the fragment along with him.

It now found itself separated from the wisher, in a completely unknown area.

Interestingly, the fragment, which was formerly on the verge of disappearing for good, found itself somehow stabilized. The fragment idly noted, it wasn't just the suffocating amount of mana infused into the air around it that sustained it, but also something else, something more.

It could feel it, the sheer malice emanating from every direction. It was a malice that accumulated from eons of being trapped and restrained; it was a malice that sang of death and destruction, of breaking free from the chains that bound it and invading the world above, bringing with it unimaginable horrors and ruination to everything in sight.

It was strangely similar to the desires that the fragment itself felt. Perhaps that was why the fragment found its very core readily sympathizing with the source of that unending malice, why it was able to use that malice to fuel its own fading existence.

Yes, this would do. The process was slow and gradual, but the malevolent existence wasn't rejecting the fragment, rather, it was readily accepting the foreign element, sustaining and nurturing it as if it were its own brethren.

The time would come soon enough.

The time for retribution.

* * *

 _Author Notes:_

Well, I finally got off my lazy butt long enough to try writing my first fanfic. Feel free to post any bits of constructive criticism, I'll definitely need em'.

Sorry if this chapter seemed kinda redundant and uneventful. Part of the reason I dedicated almost an entire chapter to a recap of Fate!Shirou and his fun life experiences was because I didn't feel comfortable with jumping straight into things without any character exposition whatsoever, and also felt that putting both his character insight and initial introduction to Orario in the same chapter would seem a little jarring.

The other part of the reason is that I quite like Shirou's character, and I just felt like spending a little over 1k of my first fanfic words on him.

That's it for now I guess. Feel free to review, follow, chuck tomatoes, or do whatever else suits your fancy, although I would personally prefer the first two.


	2. Chapter 2

Gradually returning to consciousness, Shirou fought back the searing headache and nausea that immediately assaulted him. After letting the discomfort subside ever so slightly, he risked opening his eyes. What greeted him was a clear blue sky, and light of the midday sun.

 _It's already past morning? How long was I out?_ Shirou internally remarked to himself. Propping up both arms, Shirou lifted his upper body from the floor, only to be met with an unfamiliar sight.

What greeted him wasn't the same lakeside and surrounding forest that he remembered before passing out, but instead a white, dilapidated wall.

Feeling something unfamiliar from his hands, Shirou looked down and found himself sitting on a ground of roughly carved cobblestone—definitely not the same ground of jagged rocks he last recalled standing on.

 _Did someone move me while I was unconscious?_ He was worried about the details he managed to recall from just before he was knocked out, but right now the teen had to focus on finding out where he was.

From the look of the narrow path and lack of people, he was probably in an alleyway or backstreet of sorts. Hearing the sounds of footsteps and light chatter some distance away, the teen decided to venture towards that direction, and hopefully find some clues on his current whereabouts.

Reaching what appeared to be an opening that led to a larger street, Shirou cautiously took a step out—and promptly felt his jaw dropping down.

Once, Twice, Shirou blinked his eyes. He then proceeded to rub them with all the vigor of a hormonal teenager brushing his teeth. After checking and confirming his pulse, Shirou finally convinced himself that he wasn't in some sort of dream. Indeed, what lay before him was a sight that he would associate more towards the dreams he had of Saber's memories, rather than anything he had personally seen before.

Similar to the sight of 6th century Britain that he had gotten rather used to, the street before him was lined with rows upon rows of cottage-like buildings, all built with old construction materials he had never before seen being used in 21st century Japan, nor did he expect to ever see anywhere else in the world.

Houses built with the same carved cobblestone that made up the streets, all covered with red-tiled roofs that appeared to be made of clay, and all built with thick wooden supports lined throughout. Everything was just as Shirou had previously seen of a medieval-period town.

Perhaps the one thing that immediately set apart this anachronistic location from the view in Saber's memories was the occasional cat-eared person who would pass by him every now and then.

… _Hm?_

For the second time in five minutes, Shirou Emiya had to do a double take.

After checking his pulse yet again, he confirmed that—yes—there were cat-eared people walking around in broad daylight, like it was no one's business.

Looking closer, Shirou could also catch glimpses of various other people with unfamiliar traits, such as women with dog ears, bearded men with huge muscles and none of the appropriate height to show for it, and even long-eared elves.

 _Where the hell am I?_ The hopelessly confused teen wondered. As limited as his knowledge of the moonlit world was, Shirou was sure that the existence of some town from the middle ages, filled with demi-humans, was a detail he couldn't have possibly missed out.

Considering the amount of exotic species that practically covered his vision no matter where he looked, the third-rate magus was sure that such a treasure trove would have long since been ransacked and broken down to the very last particle, had any traditional magus known of it.

Forget that, the existence of this town went against everything he knew of the Age of God's and its definite conclusion. Demi-humans could be classified as a type of phantasmal beast, and all phantasmal beasts had practically gone extinct after the end of the Age of Gods. At the very least, there shouldn't have been enough left to fill an entire town.

All of the evidence pointed towards a completely far-fetched conclusion that had already entered Shirou's mind as soon as he regained enough of his rational thought, but one that he desperately tried to reject all the same.

He was in another world.

That was the only possible explanation. The mud that attacked him and knocked him out was definitely a part of the cursed Holy Grail, the Holy Grail that should have been destroyed. That was the only thing Shirou could think of that would have had enough power to transport him to a parallel world.

—Not unless we were talking about a certain ancient vampire that Shirou had heard unsettling stories about, but the magus-in-training would have preferred not to venture towards that particular line of thought, for his own safety.

But how could something like this have possibly happened? The Grail was something that needed an outside wish in order to activate, lest the world would have long since gone up in smoke from its destructive impulses. But Shirou never recalled making any sort of wish at all.

Shaking his head, the teenager pushed away any thoughts on the issue to the back of his mind. Pondering on how he got here wouldn't help his current situation. Right now he had to set his priorities straight.

The recent experiences he had of making life or death decisions, as well as all of the intense lectures on rational decision-making he had received from Saber and Tohsaka all came back to Shirou, as he attempted to plot out the best course of action.

Ideally he would want to find a method to return back to his world, but Shirou was no proper magus, and he wasn't confident that he could find a way to reenact the second true magic on such short notice, let alone at all.

So right now he had to find a way to resolve his current short-term situation:

He was someone who was plucked out of his original timeline and placed into what appears to be a medieval time period, one in an alternate world to boot. He had no food, no water, no money, and no information on his current whereabouts. All he had were the tattered remains of clothing that he wore to the final battle of the Holy Grail War.

…

Okay. Given his recent experiences, Shirou was no stranger to hopeless situations. But he had to admit, his current position did rank pretty close to the top of the list.

Shaking off any negative thoughts, Shirou continued to think as he started walking down the street. Right now, what he needed was a way to fulfill his basic necessities. Based on how developed the town was, there was probably some sort of currency he could get his hands on.

So the best thing he could do right now was find a way to make some cash, probably from a small job of sorts. The problem was that he didn't know where to begin looking.

As Shirou continued to roam down the street, he was rather relieved to discover that he could somehow read and comprehend the unfamiliar writing displayed on various signs, and also understand the bits of small-talk being made around him, despite everything being in a language that he had never heard of before. The only cause he could think of was the grail's provision of necessary knowledge to summoned servants, which somehow applied to him at this moment.

Why that same knowledge didn't extend to other details of the world he found himself in, Shirou had no clue, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Gauging his options, Shirou noted the bakeries, blacksmiths, taverns, and various other shops that dotted the area around him. He didn't have experience working in any of those, and while he did used to run a part-time job at the Copenhagen bar, he was only familiar with catering to the likes of moody office workers, whose only form of exercise was the walk to the bus stop.

He was somewhat hesitant about servicing the likes of positively livid dwarves, who had arms more than twice as thick as his thighs.

As he continued to organize his thoughts, Shirou suddenly noted the surprising number of arms that dotted his field of vision. For every one unarmed, plain-looking villager that he passed by, he came across two or three other individuals decked out in full armor, with at least one weapon dangling somewhere on their bodies in plain sight.

The first thought that came to his mind was that there was an ongoing war, but Shirou immediately scrapped that idea. Loose as he was in the head, even the distorted teenager could distinguish how to act on and off the battlefield. The fighters around him had none of the pensive and serious moods about them that the somewhat-veteran teen had grown familiar with.

In fact, the people around him were acting more like a group of students from Homurahara Academy, lively chatting on their way to the front gates of school, than they were soldiers.

In his effort to solve the mystery, Shirou tried listening in to some of the conversations going on around him.

"-wonder what treasures da dungeon be bringing us today, gets me blood boilin' jus thinkin bout' it."

Dungeon? Treasures? Is that where all these people were headed?

Listening in to other conversations, Shirou heard similar words popping up all around him.

It made absolutely no sense to the teen from 21st century Japan, but he assumed that this so-called 'dungeon' was probably one of the main sources of income for the people in this town, considering the sheer number of armed individuals that seemed to be heading towards the same direction.

Looking at all the weapons and armor on full display, it also obviously involved fighting of some sort. While Shirou wouldn't admit to being a combat genius, he would say that his experiences in the war, coupled with Saber's one-sided beat down sessions, had amounted to some degree of fighting prowess.

He certainly had no other valid starting points to consider at this time, so he decided to try his luck out at the dungeon.

After a few more minutes of moving with the crowd, Shirou finally reached what appeared to be the center of the town, and the location of the dungeon. Now, he had no basis for saying that this was the center, but it was just the conclusion that he instinctively arrived at after seeing the huge tower that lay before him.

He had no idea how he missed such a gigantic structure up until this point. Sure, it wasn't quite as tall as some of the skyscrapers he was used to seeing back in Japan, but compared to every other little cottage he had run into until now, it was an absolute monster that seemed to stretch towards heaven itself.

The tower in question was a cylinder construction that was built out of what appeared to be white marble on the outside. From top to bottom, the tower had numerous intricate carvings that immediately set it apart from every other building around it.

If the beast in front of Shirou wasn't the most important location in this entire town, he didn't know what else could be.

Taking a deep breath, the teenager mentally prepared himself to enter the building. As he stole glances at those around him, he idly noted how, amidst a crowd full of warriors who all looked like living armories—polished to perfection—he was the only one decked out in a worn-down sweatshirt and pair of jeans.

He immediately dismissed such thoughts; he wasn't going to achieve anything just by standing there. Shirou Emiya was someone who always charged straight ahead to achieve his goals, and this time was no different. Steeling his resolve and eliminating unnecessary thoughts from his mind in preparation for the fight ahead, Shirou stepped forward.

 _What's the worst that can happen?_

* * *

 _Something terrible is about to happen._

Half-elf Eina Tulle was one of the many female guild employees that stood at the gates of the dungeon each day to welcome eager adventurers.

Underneath an undeniably attractive appearance and demeanor that was capable of making men left and right weak on the knees, and had in fact done so to several already, laid the sharp mind of an experienced guild counselor.

The half-elf was used to seeing newly-minted Familia adventurers, drunk on the surreal power that a Falna bestowed upon mortals, charge into the dungeon with nothing but a single chest plate and a rusty knife, fully expecting to emerge later in the day as glorious heroes and instant-millionaires.

She was used to pulling those adventurers to the side by their ears, beating—both mentally and physically—the rose-colored outlook said adventurers have of the dungeon out of their green minds, and finally sending them back to the dungeon entrance with a full set of armor, a properly-maintained dagger, and all of the knowledge required for them to survive their first day in the dungeon.

She also happened to be someone who had the basic survival instincts that most normal people were born with.

That was why, as she bore witness to an auburn haired-teenager pass through the gates of Babel Tower with a resolute gaze fixated towards the dungeon entrance—armed with not so much as a kitchen knife, and dressed in a set of rags that looked like they were only there to protect the bare minimum of his modesty, and not any of his vital organs—every warning bell that established Eina Tulle as an experienced advisor of adventurers, and as a sane living being, all simultaneously went off in her head.

Using her years of experience to suppress the instincts to immediately shout out, the half-elf put on her customary receptionist smile, and recited her customary introduction lines.

"Hello dear Adventurer, is this your first time in the dungeon?"

Said Adventurer then proceeded to ignore her presence completely, and continued to walk past the guild employee towards certain death.

What had just transpired was so unfamiliar, so unexpected to Eina that all she could do was keep the customary smile stuck to her face for the next few moments.

After her mind finally rebooted, the frantic advisor hurriedly turned around and ran towards the adventurer while trying to get his attention.

"Um, excuse me, Adventurer-san?!"

Her continued shouts yielded no results, and for a second Eina was worried that she had stumbled upon someone who had lost everything in life, and was heading towards the dungeon with the single-minded resolve to take his own life.

Thankfully, such worries turned out to be unfounded the moment the half-elf managed to grab the teenager's hand.

The teenager in question halted his footsteps, and Eina watched in morbid fascination as the young man's expression transitioned from one of steely resolve, to one of complete confusion. The adventurer proceeded to turn and face her, cock his head to the side, and bemusedly reply.

"Uh, hi. Do you need something, miss?"

It took all of Eina's self-control to not smack the clueless idiot right there and then.

Through a herculean force of will, she somehow managed to return to her earlier smile and tolerant expression. Mustering up as much patience as humanely possible at the moment, Eina once again repeated her earlier question.

"Hello dear Adventurer, is this your first time in the dungeon?"

She'd have preferred to think that the small twitch of her left eye was just part of her imagination.

The teenager didn't seem to notice that minor slip-up, as he gave a slight smile, and replied back with the same confused expression and tone.

"Um, yeah. That's what I was planning on doing."

"Then dear Adventurer-san, may I ask, where is all of your equipment?"

The young adventurer seemed to finally get the idea, as his face lit up in understanding. Sheepishly rubbing the back of his head, the adventurer embarrassedly replied.

"Oh, that. Well… I don't have any money on me right now, so I was thinking of heading into the dungeon first to make some, and then sorting that stuff out afterwards."

…Ok that's it.

Grabbing the teen's hand, Eina proceeded to drag him over to her counter, before seating herself on the other side.

"What's your name?" Eina inquired, in a tone that brokered no room for argument.

"Ah, Shirou Emiya," the teen guiltily replied.

"A pleasure to meet you Emiya-san, my name is Eina Tulle."

Those words were more of a formality than a reflection of Eina's true inner feelings.

Whoever this boy was, this was already beyond the level of an overly optimistic rookie. A case like this definitely merited additional investigation into the person in question. Such ignorance was beyond anything the experienced advisor had ever heard about before.

If this were a case of a Familia purposely neglecting the well being of its own members, which the half-elf highly suspected it has, then she would have to file a complaint to the guild to put the boy's Familia under thorough examination.

After a few minutes of scanning, Eina was surprised to find out that Shirou Emiya wasn't listed in any of the guild's records.

Something was really starting to smell fishy here. A Familia that neglected its members enough to not only leave them without basic defensive arms, but to also let them charge into the dungeon without even registering at the guild beforehand?

The various bits and pieces made Eina come to a single conclusion, one that she immediately dismissed out of sheer impossibility.

Placing down the stack of paper, Eina calmly looked up at Shirou.

"It appears that you have not yet registered at the guild."

Confirming the affirmative nod made by teen, Eina continued speaking.

"I would ask you to kindly fill out the adventurer registration form. But before that, there's something that I need to know as soon as possible."

Noticing the underlying severity in Eina's tone, all traces of relaxation were removed from the teen's expression, and he listened intently to the half-elf's following question.

"Which Familia do you belong to?"

…

To Eina's gradually mounting horror, the teenager's expression shifted from one of seriousness to one of confusion, in an exact mirror of her initial encounter with him. For the next few seconds, Shirou appeared to silently ponder to himself, one of his hands perched on his chin as if he were in the middle of a particularly difficult exam.

Just when Eina was about to ask him what was wrong, he appeared to have made up his mind. Placing his hand back down at his side, the teenager turned to look at Eina straight in the eyes. With all the naïve innocence of a child asking their mother why people die when they are killed, Shirou responded to her:

"What's a Familia?"

* * *

Currently, Shirou Emiya was trapped with a rather attractive female, inside a rather enclosed private interview room. Normally, he would have been flustered in such a situation, but the present case was an exception, as said female was currently glaring at him with the intensity of a thousand suns.

"So allow me to clarify a few things, you suicidal blockhead."

"Yes ma'am," the suicidal blockhead meekly replied.

"You were about to rush into the dungeon without any equipment whatsoever, and expected to not only be able to leave with your life intact, but to also leave with enough money to then purchase your equipment afterwards."

"Yes ma'am."

"Not only that, but you also decided to dive into the dungeon without even thinking of first joining a Familia and receiving a Falna?"

"Yes ma'am."

The currently huddled up teenager actually had no idea what a Falna was, but his instincts told him he was better off leaving that detail unsaid.

"You have no idea what a Falna is, do you?"

"Yes ma'am."

The slow but steady inhalation of air by the person opposite to him was all the indication Shirou needed to cover his ears.

"ARE YOU AN IDIOOOOOOT?!"

What came next was a display of pure anger and frustration that Shirou was all too familiar with, courtesy of Saber and Tohsaka.

The next few minutes consisted of Shirou being perpetually drowned in a river of insults and admonishing. By the end of Eina's tirade, the air was filled with so many curses that he was surprised the Holy Grail hadn't manifest right there and then.

"Haah…Haah…" Taking a moment to catch her breath, the elf continued to glare at Shirou, still stuck in the position where half her body was extended over the lone table separating them, and both her arms extended even further out.

All in all, she looked like someone who just tried to strangle Shirou out of desperation, but gave up halfway from sheer exhaustion.

Faced with a half-dead demon from hell, the teen spouted out the only word he could think of at the moment.

"Sorry."

Eina's glare only intensified in response, and for a moment Shirou was worried that she would launch into another lecture.

Thankfully the glare soon vanished, and the elf let out a resigned sigh that seemed to relieve all of her pent up pressure.

"Forget it, I don't think it's physically possible for me to get any angrier at you."

Shirou's only response to that was a sheepish laugh.

"So Emiya-san." Eina got back into position on her chair and reassumed her previous air of professionalism. "I'm interested to know, how did you possibly end up in a situation like this?"

After trying and failing to solve his current predicament alone, Shirou knew better than to avoid the question.

He himself was aware that he couldn't lie to save his own life either, so he decided to just come out with the truth, or at least as much of the truth as he could say without further reinforcing the impression of a mental asylum patient that Eina undoubtedly already had of him.

"I don't remember."

"Come again?" The half-elf dumbfoundedly replied.

"I don't know how I got here." Shirou repeated. "All I remember is waking up in an alleyway and not knowing where I was. I had nothing on me at the time, and didn't know anything about this place, so I just played it by ear and ended up at this tower," he explained.

Eina seemed to gaze at him in suspicion, thinking deeply about his claim. Eventually, to Shirou's relief, she relented with a sigh.

"Fine, I'll just assume that you're telling the truth. Anyway, I can't think of any other reason someone would try to rush into the dungeon the way you did anyway."

"Thank you for believing me." Shirou honestly expressed his gratitude.

"Yes, yes," the half elf casually dismissed. "That certainly does make your crazy decisions seem more believable, but still…" Eina pondered.

"Out of all the possible ways you could have earned money, why did you immediately pick the one that you knew involved fighting and risking your life?" The receptionist quizzically asked.

Shirou could only give a non-committal shrug of his shoulders to that.

Suppressing the desire to let out yet another sigh, Eina decided to move on to more important issues.

"This is a real problem though," She seriously contemplated. "While it's beyond my responsibilities as a guild adviser, I can't very well just leave a clueless person to die out in the streets, especially one that I've gotten to know personally."

Shirou had a few objections that he wanted to make about the adviser's choice of words, but decided to withhold on that for now. It was obvious that she was trying to help his situation in some way, and he wasn't about to do anything to discourage her from doing so.

After a few seconds of silent deliberation, Eina posed a question to the auburn-haired teenager.

"Emiya-san, how well can you cook?"

* * *

 _Author Notes:_

Wow, gotta say I was pleasantly surprised at the feedback that chapter 1 received. To be perfectly honest, I don't actually have any proper standards for judging feedback at this point yet—but hey, optimism bias and all.

Just gonna keep it quick and address some of the reviews. To anyone who seemed to be unsure about what was going on with the Angra Mainyu fragment—yes, I made it fuse with the dungeon.

Now, as mentioned in the previous chapter, the process is still going to be slow and gradual, so we won't suddenly come across horribly deformed rabbits spitting out black acid the moment Shirou enters the dungeon for the first time.

It's just gonna be something that will slightly influence canon events at first, and possibly develop into something more later on.

A couple of people asked about my decision to use Fate!Shirou in this fic. I decided to go that route so that I could try my hand at steadily developing a protagonist in terms of his skills and abilities, rather than start off with someone OP. Even as he is, Shirou already has a few things up his sleeve that put him a bit above the point that most rookies start off at.

I'm also planning to introduce some additional things that might give him a bit more of an upper hand later on.

That's it for now; I'd appreciate any more reviews that you people could throw my way, as I'm still a complete novice at this sort of thing.


	3. Chapter 3

A gleaming flash of silver tore through the air, cleanly bisecting an unfortunate harpy that happened to be in its path.

The current location was the 26th floor of the dungeon, territory that marked the beginning of the Lower Floors. Levels as deep as this one were in a realm completely different to that of the Upper Floors. Only parties made up of the most elite of adventurers would dare venture to this point and beyond.

Such a fact made it all the more impressive how a single adventurer was currently walking through the floor, carving through swathes of monsters with no visible effort.

Beautiful golden hair flowed freely in air that should have held no wind. A set of long golden bangs framed a pair of identically golden eyes that were currently narrowed in focus. Slender, lithe arms that looked like those of a model's betrayed unimaginable power, as they were used to swing a long rapier that decimated hordes of beasts on contact.

This was Aiz Wallenstein, a level 5 member of the Loki Familia, and the strongest female adventurer in Orario—known to all as the Sword Princess.

Currently, she was in the middle of a solo dungeon run, venturing as deep down as her supplies and current ability would enable her to.

Aiz was a person who craved power above all else. She desired the power to reach her distant goal, and to protect the comrades who would travel down that road with her. As such, she spared no effort in diving into the dungeon as often as she could in order to get stronger—even if there were times that those same comrades were unable to accompany her.

Brandishing her bloodied blade, the Sword Princess decimated yet another flock of harpies, leaving an innumerable number of glowing magic stones littered in her path.

Every day she would rush headfirst into the dungeon the same way, never resting, never slowing down.

For if she ever strayed off the path that she set herself, she would never be able to forgive the weak little girl that failed to protect her parents, that failed to protect the cherished memories of a distant past.

It was for the sake of the little girl who lost everything that Aiz Wallenstein charged into the heat of battle, slaying monster after monster, building strength up little by little, until the day she finally arrived at that fated moment.

* * *

By the time Aiz finally stepped out of the dungeon entrance, the last vestiges of the evening sun could already be seen slipping away on the horizon.

As much as she would've liked to remain for a bit longer, tonight she had to attend a meeting on Loki Familia's upcoming dungeon expedition, one that she couldn't afford to be late to.

As she started to make her way towards Loki Familia headquarters, a faint grumbling sound reminded Aiz of the fact that she hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, which she was slightly regretting at the moment.

Weighing her options, she knew that trying to go for a full-course meal would definitely make her late for the meeting, so something big was out of the question.

' _Hmm, Just a little bite should be ok…'_ Making up her mind, the blonde swordswoman took a little detour to a place that she frequented quite often.

Now, as much as the vast majority of Orario viewed Aiz as a Berserk warrior whose only passion lay in live combat, there were actually a few other things that could capture the girl's attention.

One of those things was the Jagamarukun.

As unbelievable as it would seem to many, the cheap potato puff that could be found everywhere in Orario was actually something that the Sword Princess found great solace in consuming.

—Not that she would actively go around revealing this fact to everyone.

Regardless, partaking in the fried potato snack was something that Aiz often did whenever she wanted to lift her mood up, or whenever she felt like it really.

It was with that thought in mind that Aiz made her way to the North Main Street Area, towards one of the Jagamarukun stalls that she knew about.

Just as the blonde swordswoman was about to cross over the last bend that would lead to the stall, she overheard a conversation going on just ahead.

"Good work today Emiya! Feel free to leave after you've packed up."

"Thanks miss, see you tomorrow."

Quickly clearing the bend, Aiz caught sight of a pudgy-looking animal woman walking away from the stall. Standing behind the stall was an auburn-haired teenager who looked to be about the same age as Aiz.

Said teenager was in the process of taking off the apron that also served as the uniform for Jagamarukun employees, revealing a navy-colored long sleeved shirt and a pair of gray pants underneath. He then began what appeared to be preparations for closing down the stall.

It was all Aiz could do to stop herself from dropping to the floor in despair, as her hopes and dreams for the night were shattered right before her very eyes.

Standing frozen in position for the next few moments, Aiz finally heaved a deep sigh of regret, and resigned herself to going hungry for the night.

Turning around, she was about to make her way back to the Familia headquarters, when she suddenly felt a particularly strong gaze directed towards her.

Swiveling her head around to identify the source of the gaze, her sight landed on the same auburn-haired teenager from earlier, currently looking straight at her with a shocked expression, eyes wide open and mouth slightly ajar.

Taken aback by his excessive reaction, Aiz herself was also left momentarily stunned.

What transpired next was an intense staring contest between two paralyzed individuals, with nary a sound in the background to interrupt it.

"Ah"

Just when Aiz was starting to get uncomfortable by the awkward silence and thinking of leaving, the teenaged boy finally seemed to snap out of his stupor, as he proceeded to hurriedly recompose himself.

"Hello dear customer, do you need something?" He asked with a polite smile.

Seeing that he had returned to normal, Aiz decided to put aside that little moment of awkwardness for now.

"Ah, never mind. I just saw that you were closing," she replied.

Even with her usual curt style of speaking, which many would find to be lacking in necessary details, the employee seemed to understand what she was trying to convey, as he gave an apologetic smile.

Just as Aiz was about to leave, the male seemed to make up his mind about something, as he quickly called for her attention again.

"Um, excuse me dear customer! Although we _are_ about to close, I can still fulfill one last order for the day."

That got her attention. Her previous air of resignation completely wiped away, Aiz hurried back to the stall.

"Can you?" She asked intently.

"Sure thing, it's fine by me," The auburn-haired teen replied while laughing. "But the thing is, I'm pretty new to this job, so I've never actually had the chance to make any of these by myself from scratch yet. It's always been my boss who prepared everything for me to cook up," the teen admitted, while sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.

"I can try making one for you, but it will only be based on how I've seen her do it up to now, if that's okay with you," he said to confirm.

While Aiz initially had reservations about leaving it up to a complete novice, who had never made a single potato croquette by himself prior to this this, to do the job, she quickly cast aside those doubts.

"Then, I'll have one creamy red bean potato croquette, please." Ultimately, it would still be better than going home hungry. And besides, any jagamarukun would always be a jagamarukun in her eyes.

"Coming right up!" The employee started getting to work. Since Aiz didn't have anything better to do at the moment, she ended up watching him as he prepared her snack.

Despite what the teen said earlier about being a beginner at his job, his current actions suggested otherwise. Even to Aiz's inexperienced eye, the way he expertly peeled a potato in record time, placed the potato and red beans aside to be boiled, and immediately got to work on separating the eggs and yolk, spoke of years of experience in the culinary arts.

The Sword Princess watched in fascination as he extracted the boiled potato from the pot and began vigorously mashing it with a spoon, while beating in egg yolks in the process. After lightly sprinkling the mixture with salt, he then oiled his hands and proceeded to shape it into a practically perfect disc, with a small indentation in the center.

Leaving the potato mixture aside, the male turned his attention back to the pot of boiling red beans. Taking one out to check its texture, he nodded his head in satisfaction. After removing some water from the pot, he put in a spoonful of sugar and a slice of butter, then stirred and mixed the contents of the pot until it reached a creamy consistency, and exuded a sweet aroma that Aiz could practically taste in her mouth, almost making her salivate.

Taking some of the mixture out of the pot, he spread it out over the center of the potato disc, and then cupped the disc around the filling, gradually forming it into the familiar flattened oval shape of a jagamarukun, with expert precision.

Afterwards, he dipped the unfinished product first into the separated egg whites, and then into a small container of leftover breadcrumbs—which clung strongly onto the sticky egg whites—before finally placing the uncooked croquette on top of a pan filled with oil beforehand.

Turning on the flame, the male teen let the elaborate creation sit in the boiling oil for several minutes, while flipping it over every so often.

Aiz watched with bated breath as the outer breadcrumb layer of the croquette gradually transitioned from a predominantly white color, to an extravagant shade of golden-brown.

The rich fragrance emitted by the freshly cooked potato croquette was so overpowering that it temporarily left the girl in a fantasy-induced daze.

She hardly even noticed as the male employee made the last preparations, taking the completed product out of the pan and wrapping it up, before finally presenting it to her.

She unconsciously extended both arms up to receive it from him. As her gaze was still subconsciously glued to the pan that it came out of, she never once glanced down to see the actual finished snack.

It was only after her wandering gaze happened upon the clock set up in the stall that she finally managed to regain her senses.

' _Oh no! I'm going to be late!'_ Hurriedly taking out a few coins from her pouch and placing them on the counter, Aiz gave a few words of thanks to the shop employee, before bolting down the street towards Loki Familia headquarters, this time for good.

After travelling about halfway back, Aiz discovered—much to her relief—that she would still return in time for the meeting.

Managing to calm down somewhat, she finally glanced down at the jagamarukun in her hands for the first time since it was passed to her.

Gazing intently at the small glistening portion that stuck out of the wrapping, the blonde swordswoman couldn't help herself, and took a single bite.

* * *

Inside a wide and expansive room, seven individuals were currently gathered.

The room was decorated with several objects that marked it as an office space; a huge bookcase, filled to the brim with various forms of literature, dominated an entire side of the room; a traditional and well-maintained grandfather clock was set up against the back wall, filling its surroundings with the melodic ticking of its swaying pendulum; on another end of the room stood a white marble fireplace that contrasted with the subtle brown color scheme of the room, releasing gentle flames that bathed the area in an amber glow.

Seated behind a table much too large for his own diminutive body was the owner of this important-looking office: Finn Deimne, the captain of the Loki Familia. Casually leaning against the side of the table with her legs crossed, was a woman with fiery red hair and the wide grin of a prankster etched on her face: Loki, the Goddess of Loki Familia.

Various other individuals could be found in front of the table, either seated on small wooden chairs, or leaning against the nearest wall in the room. Altogether, these seven individuals formed the core members of Loki Familia, and they were all currently gathered to discuss aspects of the upcoming dungeon expedition in just over a month's time.

"All right!" Loki exclaimed in eager anticipation. "Its finally time, lets get this show on the road!"

""Yaaaaaaay!""

A number of other members raised their voices in halfhearted attempts to go along with their Goddess' whims, but Finn raised a single hand to stop the premature celebration.

"Hold on for a second Loki, aren't we missing someone? Aiz still isn't here," the hobbit calmly pointed out.

After taking the time to scan the room and its occupants, the Goddess noted how the blonde girl was, in fact, not present at the moment.

"Ehhh?! That's impossible! Aizu-tan's always on the ball whenever its something that has to do with the dungeon!" Loki exclaimed in surprise.

"Hmm, I remember Aiz saying this morning that she was planning on heading to the dungeon by herself today," Tiona Hiryute, a wheat-skinned amazon with messy hair, absently pondered while sitting cross-legged on her chair.

"Oh no, what if something happened to her while she was down there?" Tione, the older twin sister of Tiona, worriedly suggested.

"Tch, as if Aiz would ever get done in by a bunch of low level fodder. She probably just lost track of time down in the dungeon as usual," Bete Loga, a gray-haired werewolf with a messy appearance, spat out in annoyance.

Similar types of conversations started springing up around the room, until a loud and persistent creak, originating from the office's elaborate double doors, plunged the area into silence.

Slowly edging past the doors was the subject of the room inhabitants' current focus, who proceeded to gently close the door behind her and slowly make her way towards a vacant chair, with a glazed expression on her face.

The room's inhabitants were so shocked by Aiz's sudden appearance that no one could utter a word.

The girl in question was currently seated on her chair with her head faced forward, seemingly too out of it to notice that she was currently being stared at by everyone around her.

The sound of light footsteps accompanied Tiona, as the amazon cautiously made her way towards the target of everyone's worries.

Waving her hand in front of the unresponsive girl's face, she tried calling out to her.

"Hey Aiz, are you okay in there? We were all worried about you, you know?"

No response.

Just as Tiona starting racking her brains on alternate ways to get her friend's attention, Finn finally seemed to have enough.

"Aiz!" The diminutive hobbit spoke out in a loud authoritative voice, one normally reserved for giving out orders as the Familia captain.

The familiar tone seemed to finally break Aiz out of her apparent coma. Light gradually returned to her eyes as her gaze wandered about the room, seemingly mystified as to how she ended up there in the first place.

Her sight eventually fell upon the source of the earlier voice that registered with her, and she gave an inquisitive tilt of her head.

"Yes, Finn?" The Sword Princess honestly asked.

The hobbit struggled to maintain his posture, as a sudden bout of weariness threatened to overtake him.

Filling in for the temporarily disabled captain, a well-built dwarve with brown hair—Gareth Landrock—spoke up in concern, "Aiz, where have you been?"

Tilting her head in confusion, Aiz turned around to look at the grandfather clock. After seeing the time recorded on its face, the girl visibly blushed in embarrassment.

"Ah, sorry I'm late," and honestly expressed her apologies.

A tired sigh emanated from a section of the room where a green-haired elf currently stood.

"That's not what you should be saying at this point, Aiz," came the resigned voice of Riveria Ljos Alf.

"That's right Aiz! What happened to you?" Tiona loudly inquired.

"Don't tell me that a monster actually got to you?!" Bete followed up, in complete contradiction to his earlier statement.

Faced with all of these outbursts, Aiz only absently rubbed her mouth with a hand.

Gazing intently at the fingers of that hand, she casually spoke.

"I think it was something I ate."

* * *

At some point after that night, rumors concerning an unmentionable sum of money being spent by Loki Familia on an investigation, targeted at possible sources of food poisoning that could somehow get past an adventurer's G-rank Abnormal Resistance, would circulate all over Orario.

* * *

Shirou wearily collapsed on his bed, exhausted after a hard day's work.

Flipping onto his back, the auburn-haired teen silently stared at the dull-gray ceiling of his inn room, thinking about the events of the past two days since he arrived in this new world.

After Eina's little episode of frustration was over with, she immediately dragged him up Babel tower to obtain a new set of clothes with a small allowance from her pocket, and then threw him into the shower stalls to get a much-needed cleaning off.

When he finally managed to get himself into what the half-elf deemed to be "a semi-presentable appearance", they finally moved on to the main issue at hand.

In response to Eina's question about his cooking proficiency, Shirou naturally replied in the positive—now was as good a time as any to put his ten years of cooking experience to practical, life-saving use. Initially, the teen was rather eagerly looking forward to being put inside a proper restaurant kitchen, which he never had the chance to experience before.

The budding cook was somewhat disappointed to find out that he was only going to be delegated to the role of assistant patty flipper, and general errand boy in a small food stall that only sold one type of product, but he supposed that such a job was only par for the course for someone at the bottom like him.

And so, he honestly expressed his thanks to Eina for being able to provide any sort of arrangement to him at all, quickly got himself accustomed to the type of tasks that were required of him, and started his new job.

After getting through the first day and earning his initial paycheck, which he received early more out of consideration for his current situation than anything else, he paid back the money lent by Eina, as well as a little more for all the favors she did for him, and then booked a room at the cheapest inn he could find.

His first night in the room was a sleepless one, partly due to the teen struggling to put aside all of the events that occurred to him in a such a short timeframe, and partly due to the unfamiliar Western bed he found himself lying on. It felt stranger than the native Japanese would've liked to admit: Sleeping off of the ground, away from the fluffy feel of a futon and the cool tatami mat below it.

He supposed that purposely reserving a room at the shoddiest accommodation he could find had some part to play in the discomfort, but the penniless teen didn't have much of a choice to begin with, not unless he wanted to "die out in the streets", as Eina so considerately put it.

Today passed by in much the same manner; even Shirou himself could tell that he didn't have much in the way of good first impressions, what with how he had to be introduced to a low-ranking job by another person, and a guild employee to boot.

His fellow workers treated him well enough, but he was still stuck dealing with the more menial of tasks required around the stall, and not any of the proper cooking tasks that the self-taught cook was rather desperate to get back into.

The only chance he had at reliving his old daily habits came at the end of the working day just a while ago, albeit done secretly without any of his bosses knowing about it.

As Shirou started thinking about his final job of the day, his thoughts inevitably wandered to the person who he ended up serving.

As embarrassing as it was to admit in hindsight, his mind had completely shut down the moment he first laid eyes on the blonde female who was just about to walk away from the stall.

Just from the few seconds that he initially caught sight of her, everything about that girl—her appearance, her body language, and her expression—immediately reminded Shirou of the one that he had left behind at the end of the Holy Grail War.

With golden blonde hair that reflected the light of the evening sun, the straight and disciplined way that she held herself, befitting that of a knight, and the stern unreadable expression on her face. Everything about the girl screamed of the woman that Shirou had come to intimately know and love over the course of the past 2 weeks, before his arrival in Orario.

Suddenly coming face to face with that girl was like being forcefully reminded of the servant that he had promised to let go of.

It was an ironic and cruel thing really, that he was forced to muster up the impossible resolve to willingly let go of his loved one, only to be confronted with a near-identical image of that same person just days later.

If Shirou had just left things as they were, the girl would have probably walked off, and he would have been left with the revived taste of bitter loss in his mouth.

But some small voice in the back of his mind told him to say something, anything that he could possibly think of. It told him to do whatever he could to stop things from ending there.

And so he called out to the blonde-haired girl, spoke to her under the guise of a professional food stall employee, for if he spoke to her with the genuine thoughts of Shirou Emiya, lover of Arturia Pendragon, he wasn't sure he could have maintained his calm.

It turned out that that was the right thing to do, as his subconscious comparison between the girl in front him and Saber gradually disappeared the more he interacted with her, along with the feelings of bitter loss that were revived after he first laid eyes on her.

Despite what Shirou initially believed, the girl and Saber bore hardly any similarities to each other at all.

Contrary to the serious expression she had on, the girl behaved much like an airhead would from what Shirou had seen of her. Her full attention would be captured by the smallest of distractions, especially when it came to things related to his cooking, and the Jagamarukun.

She was similar to Saber—and Taiga for that matter—in the way that both would stare intently at his food preparation with the glittering eyes of a cat zeroed in on a particularly big piece of fish, but having someone else enjoy his cooking to this level again was a welcomed addition for Shirou, more than anything else.

While she also had a tendency to talk with only a few words like Saber did at first, the latter did so out of a tendency to be as efficient as possible, whereas the former seemed to do so out of a genuine desire to not speak out much.

Ultimately, after interacting with her, it was clear as day that they were two completely different people, and Shirou was thankful that he was able to resolve his doubts as quickly as he had.

' _All right then.'_

Returning his mind to the present, Shirou got up from the bed, and grabbed one of the dead tree branches that he picked up on his way back to the room.

' _It's not like I'll be able to fall asleep easily just yet, and it won't do to get rusty just because of everything that's happened either.'_

Placing the tree branch horizontally in front of him on the floor, Shirou sat down cross-legged and got into a meditative position, with one arm held out towards the branch.

Closing his eyes, and clearing his mind of all unnecessary thoughts, the third-rate magus visualized the image of a firing hammer slamming down, as he calmly intoned the words that would enable him to perform a miracle.

"Trace on."

Familiar blue lines lit up along his extended arm, suffusing the dreary inn room in a warm, ambient glow.

* * *

 _Author Notes:_

 _Disclaimer:_ I am in no way a proper qualified cook, and this fic is in no way, shape, or form, meant to serve as a substitute for a legitimate cookbook. I highly encourage all readers to take all cooking directions listed in this chapter with a grain of salt, and I will not be held accountable whatsoever for any monstrosities that are birthed upon this unfortunate world as a result of people not heeding my advice.

So originally I just wanted to write some sort of simple scene where Aiz and Shirou would meet for the first time, without it involving the dungeon. But then my writing hand just kinda took off on its own, and I somehow ended up with that…

Yeah.

Regardless of how much the final product seems like it should've been relegated to an omake section, I hope that ya'll can forgive my little digression, and I promise that it will still have proper relevance to the story.

Anyway, I decided to just summarize Shirou's initial introduction to his new job without going in to too much detail. As much as I'd like to change the name of this fic to "Jagamarukun no Shirou", I'm not going to have him stuck in this position for too long, so I chose to cut down that bit accordingly.

I'd like to sincerely apologize to those who expressed disappointment that I didn't immediately send Shirou into the dungeon in his typical FML style (Jaysus you bloodthirsty spawns of Satan, calm yourselves), but I can guarantee that there will be a compromise for the fighting bits later on.

That's it for now. As usual, follow and favorite if you feel up to it, and comment on more ways that I could improve my writing. I really appreciate all the feedback ya'll have thrown my way so far!


	4. Chapter 4

The following day, Shirou found himself back in his usual position at the front of the stall, frying batches of prepared potato puffs and tending to hungry customers early in the morning.

It might have just been his imagination, but the teen noted that the number of people stopping by seemed to be steadily increasing ever since he took up the job.

"Well would you look at that," an impressed whistle came from the back of the stall. "I don't think I've ever seen us do this well in a while, you must be some kind of lucky charm frying boy, Emiya!" his pudgy animal coworker spoke up in admiration.

"Unless…" she narrowed her eyes in mock-suspicion "You wouldn't happen to be slipping anything funny into the food, would you?"

Shirou rolled his eyes in response. "Of course not miss, I'm sure it's all thanks to your quality work and care," he dryly shot back.

"Bwahaha! Flattery won't get you a rise, but keep up the good work anyway!

"Sure thing." The teen let out a wry smile, and continued to fry croquettes and greet customers.

As several more buyers arrived and left, Shirou eventually came across a familiar face in front of the stall.

"Hello dear customer, may I have your order please?" He asked with a knowing grin.

"One creamy red bean croquette please," came the somewhat-expected reply from the blonde haired swordswoman.

"Coming right up!"

As he received a pre-prepared croquette from one of his coworkers and placed it on the pan, Shirou stole a glance at his current customer. She had on her usual unreadable expression, but the male teen swore that he could see traces of bewilderment and… was that disappointment?

Dismissing those thoughts from his mind, the auburn-haired employee finished frying up and preparing the potato croquette, and then handed it to the waiting customer's hands. She absently looked down at the snack, before taking a single bite.

"Thank you, and enjoy your meal!" he said warmly, before grabbing the used pan and turning around to have it washed.

However, a set of unexpected words interrupted him.

"...No good," the girl muttered, as if inadvertently blurting out her inner thoughts.

"…Huh?" came the befuddled response of Shirou, who immediately turned around and gazed at his newest creation in disbelief.

To find out the reason for the auburn-haired teen's current astonishment and inability to respond, one would have to look at the history of this self-taught cook.

Shirou was the product of an unfortunate upbringing environment, in which not a single one of his guardians knew how to properly cook.

In order to save his family from the dietary horrors of having to consume fast food and cup noodles for every meal, and to save his own house from being burned down by the horribly executed culinary experiments of one Kiritsugu Emiya, the then-seven year old boy took it upon himself to learn how to legitimately cook.

The child didn't have any particular talent for cooking—at the very beginning, the only skill he could hold over his surrogate father was his ability to boil an egg, without setting half of the kitchen on fire in the process.

But through sheer determination and the authentic desire to lead a healthy life, the child managed to build up his culinary technique to an acceptable level, after which he steadily refined those skills over several years.

By the time he reached 17 years of age, Shirou had unknowingly transcended into a higher realm. The creations shaped by his mystical hands were works of art that could subjugate even the deadly combination of a ferocious tiger and a regal king.

Just to be perfectly clear, the auburn-haired teenager wasn't someone who took excessive pride in his hard-earned culinary skills, but neither was he someone who was used to hearing people outright reject his cooking.

So, all he was currently feeling was the surprise that came with experiencing something for the very first time. The self-taught cook was in no way reeling from the merciless annihilation of his non-existent pride.

Yep, not at all…

Towards Shirou's increasingly despairing expression, the girl finally seemed to notice her verbal blunder, as she frantically tried to console the chef that she almost murdered in cold blood.

"Ah, no, um…" Her naturally quiet disposition did the girl no favors here, as she struggled to find the right words to repair the damage with.

"Um, it's not that it was bad, it was still better than usual. But compared to last night, the one that you made yourse-" her words immediately had an effect, but not an expected one, as Shirou forcibly broke out of his trance, and desperately dived across the counter to cover the girl's mouth with a hand.

Leaning in close to the bewildered girl, Shirou urgently whispered to her.

" _Please don't say that out loud! I'm not allowed to prepare everything by myself yet. They'll kill me for sure if they find out what I did!"_

The girl's eyes lit up in understanding, and she quickly nodded her head twice.

"Oi Emiya, you're meant to serve our customers, not assault them! Hurry up and get back in the counter right now!" came the enraged shout of one of Shirou's coworkers.

Hurriedly taking his hand off of the girl's mouth before pulling himself back in, Shirou apologized to the coworker before turning back to face the girl.

"Sorry, but I can't do what you're asking for, you'll just have to put up with this for now," he earnestly requested.

The girl looked like she was about to argue, but then lowered her head in resignation, and started to walk away.

' _This is for the best,_ ' Shirou told himself.

As a responsible adult, he had to follow the rules. Last night was just an exception, something done out of impulse. He couldn't afford to lose his job just because of a single girl's pleas, no matter how much it pained him. This was the unshakable decision that Shirou Emiya's rational side declared.

On the other hand, as he stared at the depressed girl slide away with a hunched back and heavy footsteps, the side of Shirou Emiya that wanted to be a hero of justice cried out in furious protest.

In the end, his irrational side won out—no surprise there.

"Hold on a minute, miss!"

The girl turned around, and Shirou—while physically suppressing the impulse to rush over after he glimpsed at her dead expression—continued shouting.

"If you come by again at the same time as yesterday, I might be able to do something for you!"

The words seemed to have an immediate effect on the girl, as her expression instantly brightened up. She gave a small smile and nodded once, before heading off in the direction of Babel Tower, back straight and gait firm.

Smiling wryly to himself, the auburn-haired teen made preparations for the next customer.

During his break shift, Shirou found himself sitting on an empty stool, absently chewing on an original flavored croquette that served as his lunch.

All of a sudden, a pudgy arm came out of nowhere and latched itself around his neck, pulling the unfortunate teen off of his stool completely.

"W-what are you doing?" Shirou said as he gasped for breath, towards the animal woman employee who currently had him in an arm lock.

"Damn boy, you work fast! It's only been two days since you arrived here, and you've already got a girl stuck under your thumb—and the Sword Princess of all people!"

"It's a misunderstanding, I haven't even known her for that long!" Shirou frantically placed down his potato puff—which was genuinely in danger of falling from his hands—and continued struggling, but an unfamiliar term caused him to pause. "Wait, Sword Princess?" the teen curiously repeated.

"Yeah!" The animal woman enthusiastically replied. "Strongest female adventurer, world famous figure. You really know how to pick em', don't you kiddo?"

Shirou's only response was a confused tilt of his head.

The animal woman's teasing expression gradually disappeared, being steadily replaced by a look of uncertainty.

"Um, Aiz Wallenstein? Level 5 member of Loki Familia? Rumored to have gotten a thousand marriage proposals and shot down every single one?" she uneasily said to him.

Shirou just continued to stare at her with a blank look on his face.

"Wait, no way," the woman spoke in horror as she grasped her forehead with a hand. "Does the name 'Sword Princess' not ring any bells with you?" she asked in trepidation.

Shirou shook his head. "I used to lived in a pretty remote and far away place before ending up in Orario," the teen admitted, while internally berating himself for not trying to obtain more information about the new world he found himself in.

"Well damn..." The coworker absently muttered, while keeping her hand on her forehead and using the other to steady herself on the table. "Must've been a village built into the side of an underwater volcano in the middle of an ocean, can't believe you've never heard of the Sword Princess before," the coworker repeated in a stupefied tone.

Shirou just shrugged his shoulders in response, not willing to continue with that line of conservation and risk opening up a bigger can of worms.

"Wow." The animal woman continued to stare blankly at him in a daze. "So you honestly just grabbed the attention of Aiz Wallenstein, without even knowing who she really was?"

Silently noting down the name of the girl that he never got to know until now, Shirou just gave another casual shrug of his shoulders.

"I guess so."

The animal woman gave him a look of uncertainty, as if she couldn't decide whether to consider him suspicious, or to consider him crazy.

It seemed that the latter sentiment won out in the end, as she proceeded to let out a loud laugh.

"Bwahaha! I think I'm finally starting to see what kind of person you really are, Emiya!"

"Wouldn't be the first time someone's said that to me," the teen dryly remarked.

"That's pretty amazing though," the women complimented as she got her breathing back under control. "I thought for sure that only a strong adventurer who happens to meet her in the dungeon would ever have a chance of attracting her attention, what on Gekai did you do to catch her eye?"

"I have no idea miss, you'd have to ask her yourself if you wanted to know," the teen replied as firmly as he could, before standing up and attempting to return to his duties, in an effort to avoid having to explain how he _actually_ managed to grab her attention.

"Oh right, almost forgot," the animal woman spoke up, moving on to a different topic, much to the guilty party's relief.

"There's a shipment of ingredients currently waiting to be picked up in a farming village a couple miles north of here," the woman stated, as Shirou listened intently.

"A lot of the guys that we normally send out on these errands aren't free at the moment, so we're a bit shorthanded. I know you're still new to this and all, but would you mind heading out with the group tomorrow afternoon to lend a hand?" she somewhat guiltily inquired. "It'd be a great help to us."

"Sure thing," Shirou unhesitatingly replied. The teen reasoned that he didn't have much to do aside from his stall duties anyway—and to begin with, Shirou Emiya was never someone who could just brush off the requests of others without a second thought.

"Great!" the animal woman happily stated. "We've hired a bunch of adventurers to guard the convoy, so there shouldn't be any need to worry about safety."

The way she casually talked about hiring bodyguards—implying that there was a danger involved—made Shirou feel slightly disconcerted, but since the woman said that there was nothing to worry about, he decided to just let that little detail slide.

After finishing off his lunch, the teenaged employee quickly got back to work.

Later in the evening, Shirou was making preparations to close down the stall, when he saw an expected figure making its way towards him.

"One creamy red bean potato croquette, I take it?" he inquired, already expecting the answer as he started getting the ingredients out.

"No, I'll have one green tea flavored potato croquette, please."

The male incredulously looked up in response to the unforeseen answer, silently conveying his disbelief to the girl.

"I eat other things too," she pouted in slight annoyance.

"Right, right. Sorry about that," Shirou laughed as he gave a swift apology, before taking out a different set of ingredients.

The next few minutes passed by in relative soundlessness as Shirou directed his attention to completing all of the necessary steps, and the girl watched him intently with the same level of focus as the previous day.

It was while the croquette was being fried that someone finally broke the silence.

"Aiz Wallenstein-san…was it?" Shirou timidly asked.

That seemed to be the signal for the girl to snap out of her own unresponsiveness, as she looked at Shirou in confusion.

"Um…yes?" she absently replied to his question with another question, while pointing at herself.

Sighing in relief when he realized that he didn't just inadvertently refer to a person by the wrong name, Shirou gave a quick apology.

"Sorry, it's just that I never got your name until a while ago. I come from a pretty remote place, so I had no idea you were so famous."

"Ah, okay then."

The male teen sweatdropped upon seeing how easily the girl took that claim in stride, but was internally grateful that she didn't question him about it, like his coworker almost did.

"Then, what's your name?" she asked, after a short pause.

"Oh sorry about that, Its Shirou Emiya," the male teen replied, while berating himself for his lack of manners in not giving out his own name beforehand.

"Shirou…Emiya," Aiz quietly repeated, showing a hint of unfamiliarity while pronouncing it, which he reasoned wasn't surprising considering how the name originated from the other side of the world—if an equivalent of Japan even existed in this world.

"So you're new to Orario?" she asked inquisitively

"Yeah, I just got here 3 days ago, so everything's still pretty unfamiliar to me."

"Hmm, is that so." The girl seemed to silently ponder. "Why did you decide to come here?" she inquired after a few seconds of thought.

It was at this point that Shirou was starting to have second thoughts about the unnatural direction that the talk was currently headed in.

The way Aiz was just randomly firing questions at him just screamed out loud that she wasn't a person who was used to holding long conversations at all. It gave him the impression of someone desperately blowing at a candle to stop a rapidly dwindling ember from burning out completely.

The blonde-haired girl in question seemed to notice this fact as well, as a faint dusting of pink started to color her cheeks, while he was taking the time to figure out how to deal with this situation.

In the end, Shirou decided to throw the poor girl a lifeline, as he went about thinking of a way to respond to the question.

"Well," he started to formulate his answer. "I didn't come here entirely of my own choice, but there is something that I want to do, a dream that I want to fulfill," he hesitatingly admitted.

Aiz looked like she was trying intently to digest his answer, as she looked at his eyes, looked down at the currently frying potato puff, and then back up to his eyes.

"To create the ultimate jagamarukun?" the girl innocently questioned, with a slight sparkle in her eyes.

Grabbing the side of the counter in an effort to withstand the unintentionally brutal conclusion of the honest airhead, Shirou replied back with a strained voice.

"N-no…Despite what my current situation looks like, this isn't how I plan to spend the rest of my life," he said with a tense smile.

"Ah, I see." Despite Aiz's airheaded disposition, Shirou noted that the girl was surprisingly sensitive, as she seemed to notice his unwillingness to share any more of his thoughts, and stopped commenting further.

Taking advantage of the momentary lull in conversation, Shirou decided to ask a few questions of his own.

Just a while ago he had been made painfully aware of his own lack of proper knowledge on Orario and its surroundings, so he figured that questioning one of the strongest adventurers in the city would be as good a starting point as any to fill in that gap.

"Wallenstein-san, you've been to the dungeon plenty of times, right?" he asked.

"I guess so," she replied in a relaxed manner.

"What's it like? Exploring and fighting down there."

Her next response came quickly, almost as if the answer was something that was always lingering in her mind, no matter the situation.

"It's a dangerous place," she uttered with a distinct tone of finality. "A single miscalculation can mean getting hurt, a single misstep can mean death. In the dungeon, it's kill or be killed."

Towards the unexpectedly grave words, Shirou was taken aback. He knew beforehand that the dungeon was a place where one had to fight and risk their lives to some degree, but to hear such a menacing description of it, and from one of the strongest dungeon explorers no less, went beyond his expectations.

"But…" As he was busy contemplating on this new detail, Aiz's next words directed his attention back to her.

What he saw was an expression that he had never before witnessed on the typically aloof girl's face. Focusing intently on her, he glimpsed a strange, unexplainable glint buried within her golden eyes, almost like the flickers of a black flame.

"It's also the best place to grow stronger," she concluded, with an ambiguous tone.

Amidst the continued sizzling of the frying pan, another period of silence came about between the two, but with an atmosphere completely different to that of the previous moments of awkwardness.

As the croquette gradually transitioned closer to the golden-brown color of its finished state, Shirou decided to forcibly change the subject, in order to dispel the tense atmosphere that surrounded the both of them.

"That's right Wallenstein-san, I almost forgot to tell you," he started, in as natural of a voice as he could muster up. "Sorry, but I won't be free to make this for you over the next two days. I'll be heading to a village north of here for a delivery I was asked to help pick up."

Thankfully that seemed to do the trick, as Aiz's normal expression quickly returned to her face.

"Ah, okay then."

Shirou inwardly expressed relief that the previous somber mood was washed away, and also that his current customer seemed to accept his future absence understandingly. He wasn't sure he could have kept his promise to the animal woman, had the blonde girl decided to sulk the same way she did earlier.

"North…that's where Beol Mountains are," Aiz muttered to herself.

"Beol Mountains?" Shirou parroted back.

"Yes. You'll probably have to pass through them on the way."

Pass through a mountain? His coworkers' earlier warning about possible danger during the journey now made some sense to Shirou, but he still wasn't sure what use the convoy had for bodyguards—maybe there were bandits?

"A lot of monsters stay there. Be careful," the girl casually said.

If Shirou had any liquid in his mouth at that moment, he would have likely done a perfect spit take. As it was, the auburn-haired teen only managed to splendidly choke on thin air.

"Um, are you okay?" Aiz worriedly asked the violently coughing male.

"Y-yeah, d-don't worry about me…" he managed to get out in between ragged breaths.

After a few thumps on his chest, Shirou finally got his breathing back under control. "So, monsters huh?" he said, with a strained smile on his face.

"Mhm," the girl replied, not noticing his current bafflement. "I heard from Riveria that a lot of them that escaped from the dungeon at the beginning ended up there."

Now that was news to the foreign teen. From what he could tell based on what was just said, the dungeon seemed to be home to actual monsters. If so, Aiz's earlier statements about the dungeon would certainly make sense, if there were living beings held within it that attacked people on sight.

"Well, I heard that there will be bodyguards to protect us," Shirou tentatively recounted what he was told.

"Oh, then it should be fine. The monsters there aren't that strong," Aiz replied back with confidence.

Still paying attention to the pan, Shirou noted that the croquette was finished frying. After taking it out and carefully wrapping it up, the cook passed the completed snack over to the girl's waiting hands.

Aiz took a moment to silently stare at the croquette and take in its enticing aroma, before dropping a few valis on the counter and expressing her thanks.

"No problem Wallenstein-san, I'll see you later." Shirou said, as he gave a brief wave of his hands.

"Yes, be careful," Aiz replied, with hints of concern evident in her otherwise flat voice.

Watching the girl walk away while intently savoring the treat in her hands, Shirou idly wondered to himself whether that concern was directed towards him as a person, or him as a source of food.

Letting out an exhausted sigh, he started stowing away everything in preparation for finally closing down the stall.

Just as he was about to take his leave, Shirou cast his mind to the journey that he would be taking the next day, pondering—with no small bit of anxiety—on what things he would encounter during his first trip beyond the walls of Orario.

 _Author Notes:_

Bit of a short(er) chapter this time, since I felt that this was the best place to end it at.

Hopefully it's enough of a consolation to you guys that there will probably be action next chapter, because lets face it—when it comes to Shirou Emiya, Murphy's law is always in full effect.

Anyway, I'm pretty amazed at the response my first story's been receiving so far, makes me kinda nervous to be honest. Hopefully I don't fudge up my first fight scene enough to make everyone instantly nuke this fic off of their alert lists.

I noticed some people having some queries about the Shirou I'm using, what abilities he has as of now, and whether or not he's too OP for the danmachi-verse (God forbid Fate!Shirou ever ends up being the definition of OP).

I just want to clarify that the Shirou I'm using is specifically from the original Fate route of the VN. He's not the Deen/Stay Night version, not the Ufotable ubw version, and sure as hell not the Miyuverse version with his wanky-ass projections of freaking divine constructs.

This Shirou is the lowest of the low. He has only managed to project Caliburn and Avalon due to special circumstances, cannot project Kanshou and Bakuya, has unconsciously recorded the blueprints of some of Gil's weapons, but cannot project them regardless.

All he has going for him is structural grasping, reinforcement, and very basic projection, as well as full access to his crappy circuits, courtesy of Rin force-feeding him a prana-infused gem—but that doesn't mean he's incapable of improving from this point onwards.

Anyway, that's it for now. You guys know the drill: Follow and favorite if you feel like it, and keep those comments coming, they're my lifeblood!


	5. Chapter 5

"Good luck out there, you guys!" The animal woman, who came to the city gates to see off Shirou and the rest of the convoy, waved at them.

Shirou absently waved back, and then stretched himself out on his seat. Glancing around, the teen took note of his surroundings.

The caravan that he was riding with was comprised of multiple wooden horse-drawn carriages, segregated into several empty storage carts covered with canopies—which would be used to transport the ingredients later on—and a smaller number of open-top wagons, with benches lined on the left and right sides for people to sit on, much like the one Shirou was currently riding in.

Filling both his wagon and a couple of others were a number of humans and demihumans, all unarmed and wearing simple clothing. The male teen presumed that they were regular civilians like him, employed by Jagamarukun to help with the process of loading and unloading the shipment of goods.

Casting his gaze over to a different wagon, Shirou noted how a group of clearly different individuals were occupying it. These people were dressed in either light or heavy armor, and were carrying a variety of weapons on their body, much like the crowd Shirou would see heading to the dungeon every day.

These were most likely the adventurer bodyguards hired to defend the convoy, and they clearly looked the part. Aside from being decked up with all of the necessary equipment, they also exuded a sense of composure and wariness, even while they were chatting amongst themselves, all of which made them seem rather dependable to the magus' eyes.

All in all, the large crowd of people gathered together, the long line of vehicles gradually advancing forward as one, and the steady rhythm of the horses' hooves tapping against rocky ground gave off the distinct image of a road trip to the modern teen's eyes.

Thinking back, Shirou noted how he never truly had the chance to travel before. Back when Kiritsugu was alive and relatively healthy, he had always pestered his surrogate father to take him along on his trips to Europe, but to no avail. Even after the old man had passed away, Shirou had never felt the need or desire to venture out of Fuyuki city on his own.

The closest he had come to going on a trip were the few times he took a train to one of the neighboring districts. While trips like those did physically cover far greater distances than a horse-pulled cart ever could in the same amount of time, the auburn-haired teen admitted that riding in an enclosed high-speed train didn't have quite the same feeling as being carried along on a slow cart, while being able to admire the lush greenery and white clouds steadily passing by.

As Shirou sat there taking in the afternoon sun, he couldn't help but be reminded of the nights that he had spent with Kiritsugu on the little veranda of their home, calmly sipping tea while bathing in the glow of the midnight moon. It was with this memory in mind that the teen found himself gradually dozing off to the feeling of a gentle breeze flowing through his body.

* * *

Blearily blinking open his eyes, Shirou awoke to find unfamiliar scenery around him. It appeared that the caravan had reached the Beol Mountains while he had been asleep, as the line of carts was currently travelling on what appeared to be the only decently maintained path on the entire mountain range visible around him.

Glancing to his right, Shirou sighted the cutoff point of the path, which ended in a sheer drop that he couldn't even see the bottom of from his current angle. Thankfully, the trail itself was large enough to comfortably hold even the wide carts of the caravan with extra room to spare.

As he gazed past the cliff, Shirou gawked at the sight that presented itself before him. In contrast to the previous combination of grassland, trees, and sunlight that seemed to perfectly compliment and blend with each other to create a soothing scenery, the mountain range before him might as well have been the direct antithesis to that sight.

An unorganized cluster of valleys, mountaintops, and jagged protrusions littered the landscape, merging together with no particular regard for aesthetics or ease of traversing. The presence of thick protrusions of rock scattered around the area impeded the sunlight shining down from above, casting several erratic shadows throughout the region.

Coupled with the complete lack of green plant life to decorate the otherwise brown and gray terrain, the entire landscape gave off an unnatural and sinister feeling.

This change also seemed to reflect on the atmosphere of the travelling party; in contrast to the relaxed mood of the caravan when it first left Orario, no one seemed to be making idle talk at this point. Everyone had their guards up, and the adventurers especially were keeping a vigil on their surroundings, eyes looking about in every direction, and hands in ready positions to immediately draw their weapons.

After a few more minutes of tense travelling, the mountain path eventually opened up to a rather large and open plateau. The left side of the open area was fully enclosed by a steep cliff, while the right side was completely open, with the vast mountain range visible beyond it.

In the center of the cliff face was a fairly wide ravine-like gap that ran all the way to the top of the cliff and extended deep into the mountain at a slight upward incline, almost as if a massive blade had carved straight through the center of the cliff wall.

The arrival to this point seemed to be the signal for the front-most carriage to stop, followed by the rest of the convoy. As individuals started getting off from the carts one by one, Shirou took this as an indication that the group was currently taking a break from travelling, as he proceeded to exit his own transport.

Walking over to one of the supply carts, the male teen grabbed one of the water pouches and took a sip from it, before making his way to the shaded area where a number of the noncombatant employees seemed to be gathering around.

As he arrived in the area, Shirou glanced at the people around him. He noted that, even when everyone was supposed to be relaxing, a number of individuals were still keeping a vigilant lookout on their surroundings.

His curiosity getting the better of him, the teen called out to a well-built man with brown hair who was standing next to him.

"Hey mister, Is it really necessary for everyone to be this wary the whole time?" he curiously asked.

Even during the grail war, a period when, at any one moment, assassins could slit his throat, archers could carpet bomb him, and berserkers could come tearing into his home without warning, Shirou hadn't maintained this level of vigilance in his daily life.

Admittedly, a number of people had pointed out to him that his wariness and paranoia throughout the war were severely lacking, and far below the level that most people participating in a life or death battle could comfortably maintain.

But hey, everything turned out fine in the end, so he didn't see any problem with it.

"Hm?" the man replied with a tone of confusion, but his expression immediately lit up in understanding. "Ah, you must be new here. There's usually not much trouble that happens whenever we go through here, but it never pays to be too careful," he stated.

"None of us can fight monsters, but what we can do is try our best to spot danger and notify the adventurers just a second earlier."

As Shirou took another drink from his water pouch, he quietly took in those words.

A part of him still believed that everyone was just wasting energy by being this on-edge, but the teen could somewhat understand the angle that they were coming from. As people who couldn't fight, they wouldn't be of much help against monsters, so focusing their efforts on things that they could help out with gave them a sense of security, if nothing else.

He himself could sympathize with the feeling of being helpless in the face of adversity, mainly because of his experiences in battles against servants, who were essentially natural disasters given the form of humans. The only difference was that he more often than not chose to deal with that feeling of helplessness by charging straight into fights, regardless of the danger.

' _But still_.' Shirou thought to himself. _'There hasn't been a single sign of any monsters up to now, so is there really any point to this?'_

Almost as if fate itself was responding to the E-rank luck that the poor boy didn't even know he had, a frantic shout resounded throughout the temporary resting site.

"Monsters! Coming in through the gap!"

Immediately, everyone in the vicinity stopped whatever they were doing, and ran as far away from the center crevice as possible.

Following the crowd towards the edge of the plateau, Shirou risked a glance towards the aforementioned location.

Directing a small amount of prana towards his senses, the third-rate magus peered into the gap and caught signs of subtle movement, while his ears picked up on sounds of harried footsteps and the crunch of gravel.

As the uncoordinated cacophony of marching gradually came closer, the teen was able to make out the outlines of the creatures responsible for the disruption.

With tiny bodies attached to short limbs, elongated heads with long pointy ears sticking out, and facial appearances and expressions that looked to be the very definition of ugly and nefarious, these little green-skinned monsters had the stereotypical appearances of a goblin, prevalent in any modern day form of media.

If Shirou hadn't already bore witness to a slew of far more sinister looking supernatural beings over the course of the grail war, he might have felt some instinctive fear towards these little creatures. As it was, all the grail war participant felt was a slight sense of repulsion towards the unnatural looking critters—they certainly fell short of his initial expectations when he first heard that monsters existed in this world.

Such disappointment was instantly wiped away the moment the first group of goblins stepped free of the tight gap, and bounded towards him and the rest of the workers. They dashed with deceptively high speeds; speeds that he couldn't imagine such thin legs could ever be capable of producing.

As Shirou instinctively prepared himself to dash out and meet the assault, what happened next shocked the magus even more. One of the heavily armed adventurers appeared on the scene in an even quicker burst of speed, fast enough that Shirou almost missed the entrance even with his reinforced eyesight.

Brandishing a two-handed great sword, the adventurer swung the huge piece of metal, as if it were no heavier than a knife, and instantly bisected a row of five charging goblins, sending the separated torsos and legs hurtling across the air in the aftermath of his blow.

The completely unexpected display of strength and speed left Shirou so shocked that he hardly even noticed as more adventurers blurred into the scene and dived into the horde of monsters, utilizing their weapons in ways no less impressive than that of the first individual.

As the ground was filled with the splatter of blood and mangled green limbs, Shirou watched on in contemplative silence.

After getting over his initial shock, the unnatural physical abilities exhibited didn't remain as much of a lingering surprise to the third-rate magus. Considering that this was a world filled with all sorts of magical creatures and demi humans that he would have already never expected to see back in his own Earth, the fact that methods to enhance basic physical parameters existed here didn't come as much of a surprise to Shirou.

He himself was capable of achieving similar levels of strength and speed through careful self-reinforcement. Admittedly, there were a select few individuals who had markedly better abilities than the rest, ones whom Shirou probably couldn't keep up with, unless he took a few extreme risks.

What really left him bewildered was the cause of these adventurers' abnormal power, which remained unknown to him even now. Poor as the third-rate magus was at detecting prana, using magecraft to enhance physical capabilities to this degree would have normally required significant amounts of it, amounts which even he should have been able to identify—yet he couldn't sense even a single iota of it being utilized.

To the teen magus' own limited knowledge, that left direct physical enhancement as the only remaining alternative. But something still didn't add up to him; every single adventurer in the group was currently fighting with the same level of superhuman ability, and going by the unsurprised looks of everyone around him, this kind of display was probably standard fare for all adventurers.

Thinking back to the huge crowd he constantly saw heading to the dungeon every day, Shirou's mind was absolutely boggled by the notion that every single one of those people had very likely undergone the same physical enhancement procedure to endow them with this kind of strength—there were literally hundreds of them!

"Doesn't make sense to you either, huh?" Someone must have taken notice of his shock, because Shirou heard a voice call out to him even as he continued to ponder on his newfound thoughts.

Turning to the direction of the voice, Shirou saw the same brown-haired man he had talked to previously, gazing intently at the battlefield through narrowed eyes.

"No matter how many times I see people like them in action, I can never quite get used to it myself," the man spoke, as he scratched his hair in tired resignation.

"The Falna, the limitless blessing bestowed by the gods to us lowly mortals. It's unbelievable how such a crazy power is so readily available to just about anyone who wants to get their hands on it."

…Wait what?

Blessings? ...Gods?

The casual mentioning of unbelievable words ended up throwing Shirou into even more of a loop.

Granted, physical enhancement through the bestowing of blessings did make sense, certainly much more than assuming that it was a requirement for all aspiring adventurers to first undergo extreme physical experimentation and/or intake copious amounts of steroids, but the revelation that gods were somehow involved in the process only left Shirou with a million more questions than he previously had.

The man seemed to take Shirou's wide-eyed stare as acknowledgement of his previous words, as he continued speaking

"This isn't even anything yet. These adventurers are probably all still level 1's, a few level 2's as well from the looks of it—I've seen a first class level 5 fight before, and let me tell you kid, it was like watching a god damn hurricane of death. I barely even saw her move, and an entire horde of trolls were instantly cut apart into dust," he said, finishing off with a small laugh of disbelief at the end.

At this point, Shirou was feeling that continuing to listen to this man was having a detrimental effect on his mental health. _This_ was just a display of those at the bottom? There were others who had physical abilities who could put even these already noteworthy fighters to shame? At this point, the third-rate magus was starting to harbor second thoughts about who the real monsters of this world were.

As the distressed teen tried to get his raging emotions in order, a thought suddenly occurred to him in the back of his mind: Wallenstein was supposedly the strongest female adventurer in Orario from what he heard, so didn't that put her on the same level as the so-called 'first class' level 5 that the man was talking about?

Suddenly, that moment the previous day, when he rejected the girl's cooking request and nearly sent her away depressed and empty-handed, took on a whole different light to the sweating teen's mind.

'… _I should probably try to accommodate her requests more from now on, even if I end up getting fired.'_

In an attempt to dispel the dark thoughts forming in his mind, Shirou shook his head and directed his attention back to the ongoing battle.

Despite being outnumbered, the superior physical abilities and teamwork of the group of adventurers enabled them to gain the upper hand against the horde of goblins. Having dealt with the initial wave of monsters, the team of humans gradually formed an enclosed semicircle around the gap that the goblins were pouring out of.

With heavily armored shield bearers in the front and nimble swordsmen and spearmen in the back, the helpless green creatures found themselves being steadily pushed back and slaughtered, while being unable to advance even a single step.

Soon enough, the goblins stopped pouring in through the mountain crevice altogether, apparently realizing that continuing to swarm the area was a futile action that would only lead to death, which only left a few stragglers in the area who were quickly being dealt with at that very moment. With the threat all but eliminated, Shirou finally relaxed his shoulders.

All of a sudden, his still-enhanced senses picked up on a slight vibration behind him. Curiosity getting the better of him, he turned around to look at the point where he felt the tremors coming from—just in time to see a blood-red appendage with four claws burst through the cliff wall directly behind one of the employees.

Cursing himself for dropping his guard and not having had the foresight to reinforce his body beforehand, all Shirou could do was take off as fast as he could and pray that he reached the man in time.

Just as he arrived a step away, what appeared to be a giant ant with four legs emerged from the hole in the rock, razor-sharp claws ready to eviscerate the man who hadn't even had the chance to turn around yet.

Taking one last leap with every ounce of pure physical strength he could call up on at that moment, Shirou managed to forcibly shove the unaware man off the path of the approaching claws. But that moment of overextension left the teen in no position to get out of the way in time himself.

All he could do was raise one of his arms up in the hopes that it would be enough to stop the razor-edge from carving straight into his torso.

As the tip of the first claw made contact with Shirou's left forearm, the unreinforced flesh provided barely any resistance at all as the entire appendage penetrated straight through to the other side, with his entire body simultaneously forced to the ground by the monster's strength and weight.

Biting back the sheer waves of agony that threatened to tear through his shoulder, Shirou used his other arm to frantically grab the approaching set of claws, halting their advance just as they were about to pierce his chest.

Doing his best to ignore the pain, the third-rate magus cocked the hammer back and directed as much concentration as he could spare towards reinforcing his right leg, in the hopes that the added strength would be enough to force the giant ant off of him.

Just as he was about to make the attempt, however, the inhumane force bearing down on his arms abruptly halted, and the entire ant suddenly toppled right on top of him, as if it were a puppet with its strings cut.

Gritting his teeth, Shirou pulled out the claws from his forearm, and rolled the unresponsive monster to the side. As he held his arm to staunch the bleeding, the teen noticed the double bladed axe that was buried deep into the ant's head, and internally expressed his thanks to whoever had just saved his life.

The sound of agitated clicking noises interrupted Shirou's musing, and he turned around just in time to see more giant ants about to emerge from the newly made hole in the wall. Thankfully, while he was busy struggling with the initial monster, all of the noncombatants around him seemed to have fled the scene, and a group of adventurers were rapidly making their way towards the new source of danger.

With the immediate threat gone, the injured teen made his way out of the new fighting zone as quickly as his legs could carry him.

Taking a seat amidst a group of panicked and worrying employees as well as one very grateful man, Shirou found himself slowly succumbing to the effects of blood loss, as his heavy eyelids gradually shut, until only darkness was left.

* * *

The slumbering teen was violently woken up by a sharp pain akin to having water poured on an open wound.

Forcing himself upright, Shirou turned to look at the source of the searing pain, only to see a strange blue liquid coating his injured forearm.

Gazing curiously at the strange substance, he was surprised when the pain started to subsume almost as quickly as it arrived, and was even more surprised to see that the four large holes in his forearm were closing themselves at a rapid rate, almost the same way that Avalon used to, albeit not as quick.

"You look like that's the first time you've ever seen an elixir in action, lad." A sudden deep voice interrupted his musings. Looking up, Shirou came face to face with a man who had a head of black messy hair, along with a thick beard and a slightly wrinkled face. Attached throughout his body were plates of rather impressive-looking dark blue armor, which immediately labeled this man as an adventurer.

"Well then again, that stuff's pretty expensive, so I guess it's not too surprising."

"Ain't that right?" the voice of another adventurer chimed in from the side. "I keep tellin' ya boss, wasn't worth it to spend a whole bottle on him. Shoulda' just bandaged him up an' left him like that."

"And I keep telling you," the man replied in an annoyed tone that reflected how many times he probably had to repeat this conversation. "If this lad hadn't done what he did, we would've lost a whole lot more than just money in dealing with the aftermath of the death of someone put under us, especially on a route like this where no one has actually died since anyone could last remember."

"Tch, ain't nothing we coulda' done about that, never even hearda' anything like killer ants bursting through walls on the surface before, the clients woulda' understood if we told em," the other adventurer shot back, unwillingly to back down on his argument.

"Ah just shut your trap already. That sounds like nothing but an excuse, even to me," the bearded man spoke in a tone that promised suffering if he chose to continue the conversation.

The man begrudgingly relented at that point, shutting his mouth in favor of leaning back on his seat with an expression of annoyance.

As the strange conversation finally came to an end, Shirou noticed a small double-sided axe attached to the seated man's belt, which he realized was the same one that had slain the giant ant that almost ended his life.

"Ah." Quickly straightening his back, Shirou lowered his head. "Thank you for saving me back then."

"Ahahah, don't sweat it lad," the man casually waved away the gratitude. "It's all part of my job, I'm just sorry that I couldn't take care of that wound earlier. We had to book it out of there as quickly as we could, in case any other unexpected attacks happened."

It was only then that Shirou finally realized he was no longer sitting on the rocky ground that he last remembered falling asleep on. Looking down, he saw that he was half-lying on the bench of a horse-drawn carriage, albeit a carriage that was significantly less crowded than the one that he initially occupied, and only occupied by armed adventurers.

"Still though." The teen turned his attention back to the older man. "That was pretty damn reckless, what you did back there. I've never seen anyone without a Falna stupid enough to meet a monster attack head-on," he spoke in a tone of disbelief.

"I didn't have a choice, if I didn't act, that man would have died," Shirou spoke earnestly.

After hearing his reply, the man stared intently at Shirou with a slightly perturbed expression, but eventually let out a resigned sigh. "Well, I can't argue with the results. At least you seem to have a good head on your shoulders, what with being able to think straight in that situation, even with a bloody killer ant claw stabbed through your arm," the man said with a hint of respect.

"I've been through worse," Shirou casually replied, while internally wincing at all the times he had been cut, stabbed, burned, and disemboweled.

"Worse than being impaled through the arm in four places at the same time? Can't imagine what that must have felt like. Anyway, just take it easy for now and let the elixir do it's job, we'll be arriving at the village fairly soon."

Complying with the man's request, Shirou laid back down on the hard surface of the bench, trying to get into a comfortable position on the rough wood.

Because the area where his wounds were still stung slightly, he didn't feel comfortable enough to fall asleep again, and ended up just gazing upwards at the evening clouds slowly floating by.

As the events that occurred just before he passed out slowly came back to his mind, Shirou couldn't help but notice that those scant few minutes of conflict had given rise to a plethora of questions in his mind. For one thing, the supposed existence of gods in this world was a revelation that immediately made him break out into a cold sweat.

From what little he knew of the gods in his world, they were fickle and unsympathetic beings, to say the least. As grandiose as the term "Age of the Gods" sounded, it was supposedly a dark and violent period where all sorts of deities would directly interfere with the mortal realm merely for their own amusement.

Just by looking at the various myths and legends recounting olden times, one could already catch a glimpse of the kinds of suffering and misfortune that regular people had to go through, just because some all-powerful deity happened to be struck by a bout of boredom at the time.

Hell, Shirou himself had been directly subjected to the whims of someone who was very close to a god; Gilgamesh was supposedly a man who was two-thirds god as stated in his legend, and the amount of headache that the arrogant king had put Shirou and Saber through made those final days of the war the most difficult period of the entire battle royale for the both of them.

If someone with just two-thirds of divine blood running through their veins was already capable of inflicting that much suffering, the teen couldn't even begin to imagine the kinds of torment that full-on deities were capable of delivering.

On the other hand, considering that what Shirou had seen so far of this new world was surprisingly peaceful and tranquil—even with the existence of literal monsters—the gods of this world were probably not all that bad, especially considering how they seemed to be willing to impart blessings of protection and strength to regular people.

In hindsight, Shirou realized that it was probably unfair of him to immediately grow apprehensive at the mere mention of gods—it would probably be better if he tried to meet and get to know one first, before immediately assuming that it was the mission of all deities in this world to maximize the suffering of mankind.

As he continued to stare up at the sky, a strange dark outline on the cliff above drew the teen out of his thoughts. At first he thought it was the shadow of one of the people in the caravan, cast onto the wall up above by the sunlight—such assumptions were immediately discarded the moment the figure jumped off of the ledge, making a beeline straight towards the cart.

"Boss! Up above, a war shadow!"

Even before the random adventurer finished yelling out the warning, Shirou had already positioned himself on the edge of the cart. Filling his limbs with magical energy, the third-rate magus prepared to leap upwards and tackle the monster away from the horse-drawn carriage.

Just as he was about to jump, however, someone grabbed onto his leg and forcefully dragged him back into the cart. Wincing from the sudden impact, Shirou turned back around just in time to see the bearded adventurer rip his axe free from its holster, before delivering a powerful slash to the approaching shadow.

As the monster limply dropped onto the side of the transport and dissolved into ash, Shirou moved to bow his head for the second time that day.

"Thank you."

On his part, the adventurer just stared blankly at Shirou, as if unsure of what to say.

"Listen here lad," he began, while rubbing the back of his head in an uncomfortable manner. "What you want to do with your life isn't really any of my business, but could you at least try not to get in the way of my work? I'm supposed to be stopping you and your friends from dying, you know."

The ambiguous manner in which the man spoke hinted that he had other things on his mind that he wanted to say aside from just that. As it was though, Shirou was genuinely confused as to what the adventurer was trying to get at.

"Eh? I wasn't planning on dying though…"

The man just stared back in a nonplussed manner.

"You tried to jump off of a moving wagon, straight onto the path of a dozen other horses and fully loaded carts. Not to mention that the whole reason you tried jumping was so that you could attack a war shadow with your bare hands," he uttered with a flat tone.

"Any ONE of those actions would have killed a regular person."

"Well, I'm not-" Before he could finish that sentence, Shirou paused midway with his mouth still open.

" _I'm not a regular person."_ Before he could follow through with that response, the code of secrecy that all magi abided by suddenly came to the forefront of his mind.

In hindsight, it was probably unnecessary to hide the fact that he was a mage in the current situation, given that this was a world where demi-humans, monsters and literal blessings from gods ran rampant without anyone so much as batting an eye. But old habits die hard after all, especially ones that have been maintained for ten odd years or so.

"-I'm not really in the right state of mind right now, must be all the blood loss," Shirou awkwardly finished after some hesitation.

He must have paused longer than he intended to, as the adventurer stared intently at Shirou with suspicious eyes. Resisting the urge to gulp, the teen stared back with as blank of a face as he could muster up.

Eventually, after a few tense moments, the other party relented and looked away.

"Well, I guess I can't really blame you in that case. Just try not to do anything stupid like that again."

"I'll try my best," Shirou replied, while internally heaving a sigh of relief.

Those weren't the words the teenager really wanted to say, but something told him he was better off leaving the conversation at that for now. There weren't any other immediate threats at hand, and he didn't want to do anything to appear ungrateful to the person who had just helped him.

Standing up, the teen made his way back to his seat. Just as he wearily plopped himself down, a light breeze came in from in front of the cart. Looking ahead, Shirou saw that the convoy was approaching the end of the Beol Mountain range.

All that was left of the mountain path was a short downward slope. Beyond that, the rocky trail was replaced by a smooth path of paved soil, and the empty, gray mountain terrain was replaced by a lush, green forest filled with dense foliage and large trees.

Past those trees, a tall tower stood erected, visible even from outside of the forest, and emitting an orange light that mirrored the rays of the evening sun.

They had finally arrived at the village.

* * *

 _Author Notes:_

Just gonna get this out of the way first: Updates will probably come a lot slower for a while, cause of some RL stuff that I'm taking up at the moment. Sorry bout' dat.

Anyway, there still seems to be some confusion about what specific things this Shirou has access to, specifically how some people say that he should be able to trace Kanshou and Bakuya.

As far as I know, Shirou tracing K&B is exclusive to the deen adaptation of the fate route, which also happened to integrate a bunch of stuff from the other routes, in this case the confrontation with Caster and Souichirou.

In the original fate route, that little fight never happened, so Shirou has never actually traced the married blades yet. Sure, they are recorded in his as of yet undiscovered reality marble, but just like all the other swords he's seen so far besides caliburn, he hasn't progressed to the point where he can call upon them yet.

Anyway, that's it for now. Comment, and do what suits your fancy.


	6. Chapter 6

_Author Note:_

Putting the note at the start just for this chapter.

First thing I want to say: I edited parts of the previous chapter and reposted it sometime ago.

I read the reviews, reread the old chapter, and wholeheartedly agree with what everyone said about it. The last part of that chapter wasn't up to par; it was the product of poor planning, bad execution, and me being in too much of a rush to bother checking it over properly before posting it. I sincerely apologize for that.

With any luck, the changes I did to it have made it somewhat better to read through.

Also, a lot of people were concerned that I was making Shirou far too weak to start off with. I had a clear power balance in mind for when I wrote the chapter, but I think that a combination of me not putting enough details down and placing too much emphasis on Shirou's shock at the abilities of a level 1 adventurer made him seem a lot weaker than what I was aiming to convey, so I edited parts related to that as well.

While we're on the topic of Shirou's strength, I feel like I might as well get this out of the way right now: I **will** be making him join a Familia at some point.

Let's face it, unless I executed some major asspull-ery, there is no way in hell that Fate!Shirou could grow strong enough in time to deal with some of the nastier stuff that the danmachi-verse is capable of throwing at him, without a Falna. Just felt like I should put that out there beforehand.

Anyway, that's it for now. Enjoy the chapter—hopefully it isn't as poor as the last one was at first.

* * *

As the carriage passed the small gate that stood at other side of the forest, Shirou caught his first glimpse of the destination that he had spent the better part of a day travelling to.

It was large, much larger than what the teen initially expected when he heard the word "village". There were quite a number of buildings in just the general vicinity; Shirou could spot several cottages, a tavern, an equipment shop, and even what appeared to be a sizable inn, which he assumed was where the travelling group would be staying overnight.

Overall, it seemed like an area that was used to having frequent visitors, if the buildings he could identify were any sort of indication. It almost seemed like a miniature version of Orario if not for a few notable differences.

In contrast to the hustle and bustle of the lively city's crowded streets, the village was a quiet area with lots of open space. The houses spread throughout the vicinity were not as developed as the buildings in the capital city, with the majority being constructed purely out of wooden planks and logs, rather than stone and marble, likely due to the large forest that the inhabitant's had easy access to.

An exception to that observation was the tall stone structure that stood near the entrance of the village, which was one of many towers that Shirou could see established at infrequent intervals around the village's edge. Constructed using thick stone blocks that were neatly arranged on top of each other, the fortified structures most likely functioned as watchtowers; ones that could be used as safe vantage points to identify and eliminate monsters that strayed too close to the village.

The towers weren't the only defense that the village had either. Extended across the village perimeter, and connected to each of the towers, was a large wall of stone. While not as impressive-looking as those of the labyrinth city, it still looked sturdy and thick enough to repel most attacks.

The construction of the wall wasn't perfectly symmetrical; it instead seemed to wrap around the village in a haphazard manner that suggested it was built to accommodate the frequent erection of new buildings. Compared to the majestic fortress walls that formed a perfect circle around Orario, it was clear that the people living here valued practicality over aesthetics when it came to establishing defenses, which wasn't surprising considering their comparatively scarcer access to resources and manpower.

Still, that didn't change the fact that the village was much more impressive than Shirou had initially anticipated it would be, especially considering the constant threat of monsters looming just over the horizon, which he himself had come to personally know of.

The caravan continued to slowly advance until it reached the inn that Shirou had previously identified, before coming to a halt. The manager of the travelling group got off his cart and signaled for everyone else to gather in front of him.

"All right. Since it's pretty late already, we'll just call it a day for now and start packing the goods tomorrow morning. Until then, you guys are free to do what you want."

Immediately after the manager finished speaking, the entire crowd seemed to raise a collective sigh of relief, which wasn't surprising. From what Shirou had heard, that last trip over the mountains had been especially tense and arduous compared to the norm, with several other monster attacks occurring mid-travel that the teen hadn't even seen first-hand.

Apparently, the mere presence of veteran adventurers in the group was normally enough to deter most observing monsters, which is why the unexpected difficulty of the journey this time was enough to leave everyone spent. The sun hadn't even fully gone down, yet the teen could already see several people dragging their weary bodies over to the inn for an early, dinnerless night.

Shirou surprisingly wasn't all that tired despite the fights that he got into earlier. In fact, he noted that ever since that potion had been poured on him a while ago, most of his previous fatigue had vanished along with his injuries. It was likely the case that the medicine carried some sort of additional rejuvenation effects.

So instead of turning in for bed like the majority of other people, Shirou decided to spend some time exploring the village.

He briefly visited the shops that he saw beforehand, but they weren't much different from what Orario had to offer, and there weren't many new things to see.

He did, however, decide to drop by the tavern to grab a bite to eat. Over the past few days, the newly employed teen had taken to eating only potato puffs—leftovers from each day that were graciously provided to him by his boss—for all of his meals.

It was an absolute nightmare for someone who had previously had the luxury of cooking his own variety of nutritious food, but he didn't have much of a choice in the matter. He hardly had the money to afford a permanent bedroom for himself, let alone a kitchen. To top it off, the desire to own a proper cooking station as soon as possible had put him in the habit of cutting his living expenses as much as possible, including food costs.

But in this situation, Shirou didn't have any other alternative but to splurge a bit on a proper meal, so he figured he might as well have taken the opportunity to enjoy it.

—Was what the teen had initially told himself.

The simple dish of pork and vegetable stew was quite a taste to behold on his palette. Shirou's own cooking skills were honed through many attempts of trial and error, so he could appreciate the need to taste many combinations of ingredients to serve as future references.

But never before had he had the opportunity to sample the not-so-delicate contrast of soggy, slushy pieces of lettuce, mixed in with meat that had the rubbery consistency of chewy tire. It was an interesting combination to say the least, and one that he would probably keep in his memory—if only to file away in the section of recipes that shouldn't be touched with a six-foot pole.

He was honestly expecting better, considering that even the potato puffs that he had grown rather tired of eating every day weren't that bad in terms of taste. With the way that dish was prepared, Shirou got the impression that food was just a secondary detail thrown onto the menu as an afterthought, with the main attraction being the alcohol. More than likely, the dishes were just a way for the owners to make a few extra bucks off of people too drunk to care about the taste.

So, it was on that note that Shirou metaphorically crawled out of the tavern, satisfied physiologically, but by no means mentally.

As the still-reeling teen aimlessly wandered about, his attention was caught by a dense group of trees lining one side of the village. They were still within the confines of the walls, so they were clearly not part of the forest. Upon wandering closer, Shirou noticed that they were all trees that grew various types of fruit.

Thinking back to the original reason he had to journey all the way out here, it was likely that the village itself was a farming area that directly produced the ingredients he would be helping to bring back. That assumption was proven correct when he walked passed the thick group of trees to the other side, and the space immediately opened up to the view of wide expanses of farmland.

The area looked to be around the same size as the other part of the village, which was impressive, considering that the walls expanded to cover even this entire section. The more dilapidated appearances of all the structures here told Shirou that this farming area was likely the original face of the village where work was done. The newer area constructed beyond the trees was probably built later on as an afterthought, to accommodate visitors and other people.

Within this district, the majority of buildings surrounding the land were homes. It seemed like the majority of local villagers resided here, where they could more easily tend to the crops. Shirou couldn't properly identify any of the actual plants being cultivated, but he assumed there had to be quite a number of potatoes being grown if this village served as the main source of ingredients for Jagamarukun.

As the auburn-haired teen absently wandered along one of the dirt paths, he came across a sight that he wasn't expecting to see in this remote location. Installed along the bank of a water canal was a large object that he immediately recognized as a magic stone-powered water purifier, much like the ones he would occasionally see connected to the sewage system in Orario.

The existence of magic stone devices was one of the many things in this world that left Shirou utterly bewildered. Everything else he had seen so far, from the construction style to the clothing, had all been relatively in-line with what he knew existed during the Middle Ages.

Magic stone devices, on the other hand, were strange peculiarities that were far ahead of everything else in terms of technology. They were devices that were constructed to utilize the energy from magic stones, which he had just recently discovered came directly from monsters, to emulate the functions of a variety of modern electrical appliances—such as stoves, freezers, and light bulbs—to practically the same degree of efficiency as their present-day counterparts. He himself was accustomed to using a magic stone stove as part of his job at the Jagamarukun stall.

Based on what Shirou had learned by asking around out of curiosity, if there was one area that the appliances had yet to catch up on, it was affordability. That magic stone devices could be seen everywhere in Orario was only because the city was the very source of those devices. With an abundance of high-quality magic stones, it was a fairly simple task to provide for those who lived within the walls of the Labyrinth City.

Outside the walls was a different story. While the dungeon did provide a sizable supply of magic stones, it naturally wasn't nearly enough to accommodate the demand of the entire world. As such, while the stones and devices were relatively accessible for citizens of Orario, who directly contributed to the city's development, the same couldn't be said for outside locations.

Big countries could probably afford to purchase large quantities of magic stones and devices, but it was unlikely that a relatively small, remote village like this one had the resources to do the same. Indeed, even after scouring most of the village by this point, Shirou had only come across a few simple devices, such as the lights and stoves used in the tavern, and certainly none as big and complicated as a water purifier.

As the teen circled around to get a better look at the unexpected find, he caught sight of a gray-haired man, who looked to be in his mid 50s, fiddling with the inside of the device with an irritated expression on his face. Upon closer inspection, he also noticed that, despite a pipe extending down to the canal's surface, there wasn't actually any water being visibly taken in.

At this point, it was clear what the issue was.

As Shirou walked up to the frustrated man, a familiar sense of nostalgia bubbled within him, one that stemmed from his days as "Homurahara's Brownie".

' _Although it's really only been a few weeks since then. Must be because of everything that's happened lately,'_ Shirou internally noted as he called out to the man.

"Hey mister, do you need any help?"

The man, who was clearly engrossed in his current predicament, startled slightly at the unexpected words that were directed at him.

Turning around and spotting Shirou, the man put on a strained smile. "Ah, sorry about that young man, I didn't notice you there. Must be because I've been at this for hours already," he spoke before letting out an exhausted sigh.

"About that," Shirou began, "I might be able to give you a hand with fixing it."

"You can?" The man's eyes widened in surprise at that. "Are you a magic-device engineer?"

"Not exactly, but I may know a thing or two about them." To tell the truth, he didn't truly understand how the devices worked beyond the basics. But then again, the same could be said for all of the appliances that he successfully repaired in his old school and workshop.

"Sorry, but would you mind stepping away for a while? I don't mean to sound rude, but I generally work better when I'm alone," Shirou requested in an apologetic tone.

He would have much rather avoided the hassle that came with having to explain why exactly he was able to instinctively tell what was wrong with the device just by touching it and closing his eyes, like some sort of a miracle man of machines.

"Go ahead, young man. Feel free to use whatever tools you need from the box," the man wearily spoke before dragging himself back to his house. Thankfully, it seemed that he was too tired with the malfunctioning purifier at this point to even care, and was more than willing to let Shirou do whatever the teen pleased so long as he could wash his hands of the task.

Letting out a wry smile at the man's resigned attitude, the third-rate magus got himself into a comfortable seating position in front of the device, and softly placed a hand on the metal surface.

Calming himself down, he prepared to evoke one of the few magecrafts that he could perform to any sort of practical level: Structural Grasping.

 _Trace on_

As the familiar sensation of magical energy coursed through his body, Shirou injected a small pulse of prana directly into the appliance. As the magical energy travelled through the interior, a detailed blueprint of the magic stone-powered water purifier gradually took shape in his mind. Everything about it, from the individual components that formed the device, to the way that they all interacted with each other to produce the intended effect, was relayed straight to his consciousness.

Structural grasping didn't enable Shirou to fully comprehend the deeper intricacies of how an object functioned to the same level that a professional engineer was capable of. Much like viewing an actual blueprint, it only served as a template for him to reproduce the constitution and functions of a particular object. But just that much alone was already enough for what he needed to do.

' _The magic stone itself still has plenty of juice left in it—but it looks like the buildup of bacteria in one of the cables is impeding the flow of magical energy. Just a bit of cleaning should be enough to solve that problem._

' _The container of the stone also has a number of cracks in it from disrepair, so a significant of magical energy released is being lost to the surroundings. The gaps aren't that wide, so just a bit of tape should be enough to do the job for now.'_

' _A bigger concern is that the main filter appears to have been damaged through excessive buildup of debris, so the water probably wouldn't be safe to drink even if the device was in working order. There's no spare filter lying around, so I'll probably just have to make do with restoring its original structure through reinforcement.'_

Initially, the third-rate magus was worried that the unfamiliar makeup of the magic-based device would be an obstacle to his attempts at structural grasping, but the familiar stream of information that flowed through his mind thankfully proved that assumption wrong.

With the last of the necessary details registered in his brain, Shirou cut off the flow of prana and opened the toolbox, as he prepared to get to work.

* * *

Likely due to how old the device was, there were a number of faults in it that accumulated over a long period of time. As such, it was well over an hour by the time Shirou hammered out the last of the dents and replaced all of the covering panels over the appliance.

Wiping off the thin sheen of sweat that matted his forehead, he activated the device and allowed a steady stream of water to pour down into the empty bucket. After the container was filled up, he shut off the device and carried the bucket with him to the owner's house.

As he took in the entirety of the home's exterior, Shirou unconsciously let out a whistle of admiration. Compared to all the other wooden buildings he had seen in the village, this one was remarkably well-furnished and high class. The house made liberal use of carved stone for it's walls, and the sloping roof was constructed out of the same red clay tiles that he frequently saw back in Orario.

Giving a polite knock on the intricately engraved door, Shirou called out.

"Hey mister, I've finished with the repairs."

There was silence for a while, followed by the sounds of creaking wood and subsequent footsteps.

A moment later the door opened, and the house owner stood behind with a surprised look on his face.

"Done already young man? I was sure you'd take a lot longer."

In response, Shirou held up the bucket of purified water for the man to see.

Gazing questionably at the liquid, the man cupped a small amount of water in his hands and tentatively took a sip.

His eyes immediately widened in astonishment.

"Unbelievable," he muttered as he absently stared at the bucket of water. "I haven't tasted water this good in a long while, you really do know your stuff. How much do you want in return for this?"

At that point Shirou raised his hands up in protest. "Ah, I don't need anything in return. I didn't have anything better to do anyway."

Just as he was about to turn around and leave, and solid hand gripped his wrist and prevented his escape.

"No, I insist," the man said with a set of glinting eyes. "Even if you won't accept money, at least come in and let me treat you to something. You don't have anything better to do anyway, am I right?"

Mentally sighing at how his own words were just used against him, Shirou reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged into the house. After being seated, he was told to wait for a few minutes while the man disappeared into the kitchen.

Left without anything to do, his gaze ended up wandering around the living room area. Shirou had his suspicions when he first saw the exterior of the house, but even the interior appearance was remarkably upmarket compared to what he had seen of the rest of the village.

A layer of smooth, polished wood made up the floor of the room, and an expensive-looking rug was draped over the center of the room below where he was currently seated. The very place that he was sitting on was a rather large couch with comfortable wool stuffing that perfectly took in his weight.

The interior walls were covered by a layer of light brown smooth stone, which cleanly reflected the yellow light emitted by several magic-stone lamps attached to the ceiling. Towards the inner side of the house to the left of the kitchen entrance was a polished wooden door left slightly ajar, through which Shirou could catch glimpses of a plain, but comfortable looking bedroom.

Starting from the entrance of the house was a large staircase that extended along the right side of the living room, which led to a single closed door on the second floor of the house.

On the leftmost side of the room, a medium-sized stone fireplace emitting an amber glow was installed. As Shirou's gaze wandered above the fireplace, a silver broadsword mounted on a wooden panel inexplicably caught his eye.

The smooth, unblemished surface of the blade clearly indicated that it was the product of careful maintenance and care. The black hilt had a simple, undecorated design, with a length of brown leather grip wrapped around it that ended at an orb-shaped pommel at the bottom. Between the hilt and the blade was a flat rectangular crossguard.

However, what really caught Shirou's attention was the feeling that the sword exuded.

For reasons unknown even to him, the third-rate magus was able to instinctively tell that the beautiful weapon was much more than a simple decorative item. The aura emitted by the sword spoke of years of dedicated usage; impacts on metal and flesh had tempered the blade to the point where the battles that it had been a part of had become an inseparable component of its very existence.

Shirou had no clue how he was able to understand so many of these details at just a glance, but perhaps it had something to do with his element being 'Sword', as he recalled Tohsaka mentioning sometime before.

"You've been staring at that thing for quite a while now," a voice interrupted his thoughts.

Turning around, Shirou saw the owner of the house leaving the kitchen with a tray of tea and snacks.

"Sorry about that. I couldn't help it, its a beautiful sword," he honestly expressed his thoughts while scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. "Is it yours?"

The man glanced towards the display. "That old piece of metal? It's just something I used to use."

There were a number of possible ways to interpret what the man meant when he said that, but one very likely possibility immediately came to Shirou's mind.

"Mister, you used to be an adventurer?"

If the man really did used to prowl the dungeon, then that answered a lot of questions. From what Shirou gathered, adventuring was an extremely dangerous occupation that involved risking one's life. But that meant there also had to be a large reward involved.

Him being a former adventurer would have certainly explained how he was able to afford a comparatively luxurious home, as well as several high-spec magic stone devices, out in a distant farming village.

More importantly though, it meant that the man had likely accumulated a significant amount of experience and wisdom when it came to battling monsters, which Shirou could learn from. There were still lots of things that he didn't know about this world, a fact that he was brutally reminded of when he nearly lost his life that afternoon to monsters.

There was that one time he tried questioning Wallenstein about it, but the blonde girl's tendency to use as few words as possible made it such that trying to get adequate knowledge out of her was…a challenge, to say the least.

As it was, with the very strong possibility that the man in front of him was a former adventurer—and a rather strong one at that, if the vibes Shirou were getting from the mounted sword were any indication—this was a very good opportunity to get better prepared for what lied ahead.

"…" Instead of immediately responding, the house owner fell silent as he looked down with a mixed expression. It looked like Shirou's question had brought up some rather unsavory memories that the man would have preferred not to recall.

The hesitance that he displayed was enough that Shirou was about to consider taking his question back out of courtesy. Eventually, however, the man's shoulders relaxed, and he looked back up at Shirou.

"Indeed, but that was a long time ago."

Shirou observed the man's expression closely, and came to the conclusion that the former adventurer appeared to have gotten over his momentary inner conflict.

So he risked asking the next question.

"What can you tell me about adventuring?"

* * *

The conversation went on for a surprisingly long time after that, but it was time well spent in Shirou's opinion. The two had gone over a variety of topics, including the different types of monsters, the magic of this world, and the various floors that made up the dungeon.

At first, the man still showed some hesitation at broaching on the topics of his past. But as time went on, he visibly grew more relaxed and comfortable with recounting his past life as an adventurer, and even exhibited excitement while recalling some of his more impressive exploits.

Admittedly, there were a few questions that Shirou raised, such as what a Familia was and how a Falna worked, that made the man look at him as if he was the equivalent of a person who didn't know why water was wet. But thankfully it seemed that the excuse Shirou gave about him coming from a distant and isolated land, as well as the other party's general eagerness to keep the conversation going, was enough for the man to overlook those few details.

By the time they ran out of topics to go over, the sun was already edging over the horizon, and darkness was gradually enveloping the outside view.

"I'm really sorry that I took up so much of your time," Shirou apologized in earnest.

"Haha, don't be. It was fun, remembering the old days," the man dismissed his concerns with a short laugh. "But I'm surprised you've listened to my rambling for this long. You must really want to become an adventurer, young man."

Shirou didn't have an immediate answer for that. Earlier on, he was indeed thinking about taking up the occupation, if only to obtain a Falna and all of the benefits that came with it. But after hearing how fondly the man spoke of his prior Familia, the teen was starting to reconsider his decision.

"I'm not sure yet," he replied uncertainly.

The impression he got was that a Familia was something akin to an actual family; a group of strangers brought together through a shared goal, with the obligation to support and help each other in times of need, all the while improving ties with one another. In his current situation, Shirou wasn't sure he could take up such a commitment in good conscience, with the knowledge that he may very well have to abandon that obligation at some point down the road.

Granted, the former adventurer had also told him of various Familias that balked at the idea of building close relationships, and only cared about exploiting its members for benefits, but Shirou had no particular inclination for joining such unsavory groups either.

"Hmm, can't say I'm against your hesitance," the man said while rubbing his chin in rumination. "Adventuring can be a pretty dangerous job, and most deities tend to just push you around without giving you much breathing room."

"That does seem like it would be troublesome to deal with." Shirou said while smiling wryly.

That point about having his freedom restricted by the ruling deity certainly did seem like a significant burden. But now that he thought about it, Shirou noted that something didn't quite add up in light of that.

"How come you're all the way out here then?" Shirou asked curiously. "You said that you were a level 3, so you should still be able to fight just fine even at your age."

From what he heard, leveling up a status had the additional effect of extending one's lifespan, and by extension, the duration that one could remain in their prime physical state.

"Your Familia had no problems with letting you retire to a farm just like that?"

Almost immediately after the words left his mouth, Shirou regretted asking. The man's disposition, which had gradually grown more relaxed and outgoing as the conversation went on, abruptly regressed back to his earlier discomfort.

"True, if it were up to those guys, I wouldn't even have had the chance to retire. They would've just kept dragging me along on their crazy rides until my dying breath," he softly muttered, almost as if he was talking to himself.

"But…" His voice trailed off, as he showed clear signs of struggling to formulate the next words.

"Well… I ended up leaving my old Familia, and I didn't feel like joining another one, so I wound up in this place," he ambiguously finished while breaking eye contact.

The former adventurer's words didn't reveal much, but his expression alone told Shirou all that he needed to know. After all, the teen was accustomed to seeing a similar look on Kiritsugu's face before the man passed away.

It was an expression that Shirou hadn't come to truly understand the meaning of until he had heard his surrogate father's dying regrets on that silver moon night, and later from when Saber had told him of the emptiness that plagued the unexpectedly cold-blooded man's heart.

While it was by no means as painful-looking as Kiritsugu's was—Shirou doubted that there were many other individuals out there who could have gone through enough to wind up in that state—it was there.

Regret, disappointment, lingering grief.

Taking into account the few words the man had spoken just now; Shirou could come to a fairly definitive guess as to what might have happened.

' _It's not surprising, but it looks like people still suffer from the same things, even in a different world…"_ the distorted teenager silently lamented to himself.

But even if he understood, there wasn't much he could do.

Shirou wouldn't hesitate to give his all to those who cried out for help in front of him, but there was no way to bring back the dead, no recompense that he could offer to them aside from one thing.

"I'm sorry."

The man glanced at Shirou in surprise, but then let out a short sigh.

"Don't be. It's all in the past, so I'm pretty much over it by this point," he said, while giving a small smile.

The orphan could immediately tell that that was far from the truth. It wasn't that easy to let go of past failures, especially ones that involved lost lives—he of all people was intimately aware of this fact.

Before the house could be enveloped in another atmosphere of uncomfortable silence, however, the sudden sound of a horse neighing caused both individuals to cast their gazes out the window.

As a lone stallion slowly came into view, Shirou glimpsed a familiar-looking carriage, with a canopy draped over it, being pulled behind the animal. Sure enough, several more horse-pulled carriages could be seen travelling close behind, along with a couple of familiar faces.

It looked like some of the workers were bringing the storage carts over to this section of the village first, likely so that the loading work could begin more smoothly tomorrow.

"Strange, I don't see horses around these parts very often," the man quietly muttered to himself.

"Ah, I just arrived with that group today. We're here to pick up a delivery to bring back to Orario."

The man's face lit up in recognition. "Oh right, I forgot that was happening today."

He subsequently fell silent as if contemplating something in his mind, before turning to address Shirou. "Hey young man, how would you like to sleep over here for tonight? Saves you the trouble of having to walk all the way back to the inn."

"What? There's no way I can accept that, I've already imposed on you for too long!" Shirou exclaimed while frantically gesticulating.

"It's no problem at all. I've got a spare room with a bed upstairs that I mostly use for storage, if you're fine with that. Rest assured, it won't be any extra hassle," he stated, waving away the teen's concerns.

Shirou took the time to reconsider his response at that. It's true that merely sleeping over probably wouldn't inconvenience the man.

Aside from not having to walk all the back to the other side of the village, staying here also meant that he could save a few extra valis from having to rent an inn room, which would undoubtedly benefit his current poverty-stricken situation.

"Okay then, I'll accept your offer," he graciously replied.

* * *

A while later, Shirou found himself seated on top of a comfortable wool bed inside a dimly lit space.

The spare room was unbelievably well furnished, given that it was supposed to be nothing but a place for storage. The knowledge that some person who lived in a farm had a storage room that was better decorated than his own bedroom in Orario made even Shirou, who was accustomed to living a frugal life, weep slightly on the inside.

Even as he let his bottom sink pleasantly into the elastic mattress, Shirou couldn't find it in himself to fall asleep at the moment. It was partly due to some of the potion's effects still lingering at this hour, but more than that, the events that afternoon kept replaying in the teen's mind.

" _Try not to do anything stupid like that again."_

The adventurer hadn't known about Shirou's ability to magically enhance his body, but what he was trying to convey did have an element of truth.

As he was now, he was far too weak.

The teen could have said all he wanted to about being able to fight monsters if he used his magecraft, but it didn't change the fact that he would have likely died against the killer ant that afternoon had no one intervened. The fact that he couldn't reinforce himself in time was no excuse—that in itself was already a sign of weakness, one which he would have to rectify.

Shirou's current goal was to find a way to return back to his own world, but to not put in the utmost effort to save everyone in front of his eyes at this very moment would be a betrayal to his ideals, and a rejection of Shirou Emiya's very existence.

With a renewed resolve, the third-rate magus stood up from the bed. Practicing excessive strengthening on himself was out of the question at the moment, since self-reinforcement carried the very real risk of injury in the event of failure. He still needed his body in working order to be able to carry out the manual labor tomorrow.

Instead, he looked around the room for any pieces of scrap objects lying around, one's that the house owner hopefully wouldn't mind too much if they ended up broken. Eyeing a small piece of blank paper, Shirou decided to start his efforts there.

Rolling the flat sheet into a cylinder, Shirou sat down on the floor and placed the experiment in front of him. Closing his eyes and intoning his signature aria, he first performed a structural grasp on the paper, an analysis done with the intention of identifying the metaphysical gaps in the material.

He then focused harder, injecting a slow, steady stream of prana into those gaps, filling them in and enhancing the constitution of the object. Once the volume of prana in the sheet reached a certain point, he cut off the supply of magical energy.

' _Alright, this is around the level that I strengthened that poster to when Lancer attacked me,'_ Shirou noted to himself, as he began to pour in prana once more.

' _Now, lets see if I can't make it just a little more-'_

Immediately after he thought that, his control over the output of his circuits slipped ever so slightly, and the rolled-up sheet promptly scattered outwards into a million tiny scraps of paper.

"Ah, dammit, I was so close too…"

Obviously, improving his magecraft wasn't going to be as easy as that, not with his abundant lack of talent.

All the third-rate magus could do was try again.

* * *

After what must have been well over an hour, Shirou was still seated in that same position. Scattered all around him were scraps of wood, paper, and all sorts of other debris that marked the failed attempts at improving his reinforcement.

But all of those broken objects weren't for nothing. The proof of reparation for their destruction came in the form of a single metal pipe that was laid horizontally before Shirou. To anyone else, that pipe would have been nothing but an unremarkable, slightly rusted piece of steel. But to the third-rate magus, this object represented a significant milestone in the amount of prana that he could safely inject into an article.

"I really have to thank Tohsaka for her help with opening my circuits, it sure made everything a lot easier," he openly said to himself.

The main reason why Shirou was able to improve so quickly, when just a few weeks before he would have taken months to achieve the same results, was undoubtedly because his magic circuits had been opened. Whereas previously he would have had to bring himself to the brink of death just to produce a tiny smidgen of prana, now producing it came to him as easily as breathing did. Because of that, he could direct all of his attention towards casting reinforcement, and also had the magical reserves to practice for far longer.

Even now, he still had enough remaining prana to keep going. But he decided to turn in for the night instead, since the following day would be a busy one.

Climbing onto the bed, Shirou unfolded and threw the blanket over himself and let his head sink into the fluffy pillow, immersing himself in the pleasant ache that his body felt after a hard day's work.

As the auburn-haired teen lay on top of the most comfortable mattress that he had the pleasure of sleeping on ever since he arrived in this world, he found his consciousness gradually drifting off to a peaceful sleep…

*CRASH*

A sudden deafening noise in the house jolted the dozing teen wide-awake.

"What the hell was that?!" Shirou exclaimed, as he threw aside his blanket and swung his legs off the bed.

Reinforcing his hearing, Shirou was able to make out the distinct sounds of several sets of footsteps, originating from the floor below. The storage room he was in didn't have any windows, so he had no way of telling what was going on outside.

Immediately making up his mind, Shirou grabbed the still-reinforced metal pipe and quietly opened the room's door, before cautiously taking a peek down the staircase.

The living room of the house was pitch black save for the moonlight shining in through the broken-down door—which Shirou noted was probably the source of the earlier loud noise—but that posed little issue to the third-rate magus' strengthened eyesight; what he saw below nearly made him doubt those very magically-enhanced eyes.

A good dozen monsters were currently roaming about the floor. Among the group, he could make out the figures of goblins, and other unfamiliar-looking dog-headed monsters that were of similar height, which he assumed were kobolds based on what the former adventurer had told him.

However, that shock lasted but an instant.

Almost immediately, the sudden realization that the owner of the house was in very real danger snapped Shirou out of his stupor, and nearly made him dive straight into the group of monsters without thinking. However, he forcibly kept himself hidden upon getting a closer look at the situation.

The man in question was nowhere to be seen. The door to his bedroom was currently closed, so that meant he was likely inside and safe for the moment. Directing his attention back to the living room, Shirou noticed that the monsters were acting rather strangely.

They were going around wrecking havoc on everything they could see, which was expected—but at the same time, they also seemed to be gravitating towards the various magic stone devices around the room. When a monster reached one, it would tear open the device before pulling out the magic stone inside and keeping it. None of them seemed inclined to check the bedroom just yet.

Shirou was somewhat curious about this strange behavior, but the reason for it was irrelevant at the moment. All it meant was that he had extra time to spare.

During the previous two occasions that the teen had confronted monsters, he had been caught off guard without properly preparing himself, and had nearly lost his life as a result.

Now, in this current situation, he wouldn't be making that same mistake again.

 _Trace on_

While keeping his eyes firmly glued to the monsters' movements, the third-rate magus reactivated his warmed up circuits, and carefully allowed prana to disperse throughout his body. His prior attempts that day weren't so much proper self-reinforcement as they were haphazard infusions of prana, done with an emphasis on casting speed rather than effectiveness.

This time it was different.

 _Structural Analysis, set_

Mentally mapping out the design of his own body, Shirou noted down each and every metaphysical gap in his physical constitution, and used the overflowing prana from his circuits to slowly fill in those gaps as much as his current skill level would safely allow him to.

Momentarily directing his attention back to the outside, Shirou noticed that the monsters were almost done scouring the living room. One goblin was currently making its way towards the bedroom door.

Gradually decreasing the flow of prana to the minimum amount needed to maintain his strengthened state, Shirou performed another application of reinforcement on the metal pipe as an afterthought, reshaping the blunt circular tip into a sharp point.

The goblin was only a few steps away from the door now. Shirou tensed his body and focused his vision, as he prepared to unleash a surprise attack at the most opportune moment.

—Said moment was completely missed the instant a blade pierced straight through the door, lodging itself directly in the goblin's magic stone core.

No sooner had the dumbfounded monster dissolved into ash did the door fly open, exposing a very scary looking man with a blood-soaked sword firmly gripped in his hand, a sword which some part of Shirou's frozen mind idly noted was the same one that was currently missing from the wooden display above the fireplace.

During the momentary confusion, the former adventurer took the opportunity to lunge towards a nearby kobold and execute another brutal thrust through its heart. As monster number two dissolved into ash, that seemed to be the signal for the rest of the mob to let out feral cries, and charge towards the lone man in bloodlusted frenzies.

Upon seeing this, Shirou prepared to do what he originally intended to. Although the owner had managed to take out two monsters by surprise through targeting their magic stone cores, he wouldn't last long in a head-on confrontation with his Falna currently sealed.

Grabbing onto the handrail with one hand, Shirou cleared the entire staircase in a single vault. Firmly gripping the pipe with both hands, he used his falling momentum to bring down the sharpened tip on an unsuspecting goblin, pinning it down on the ground through its head and instantly killing it.

In the face of yet another surprise attack, all of the monsters paused, as if deciding which of the two targets they should be focusing on first.

Taking advantage of this, Shirou took off like a bullet, running his makeshift weapon through an obstructing kobald's magic core in the process, before positioning himself between the former adventurer and the remaining monsters in a defensive stance.

"Gyshaaaa!"

Three goblins immediately lunged towards him with sharp claws extended, but found themselves held in place by a deceptively sturdy metal pipe. Grunting with the exertion, Shirou simultaneously lashed out with a kick at another goblin closing in from the side, catching it on the chest and sending it sprawling across the floor.

At the same time, a sharp sword tip came flying in from behind him, cleanly dispatching one of the goblins he was holding off. As the combined strength pushing against him dwindled significantly, Shirou gave a forceful shove to put the two goblins off balance, before bashing one of them across the head with the pipe and delivering an uppercut to the other, knocking both of them out.

Turning his attention to the other monsters, Shirou stabbed an approaching kobold through it's magic stone, but cursed as another one managed to get passed him. Before he could turn around to deal with it, he was forced to intercept the attacks of the three remaining creatures.

Ducking under a goblin's horizontal swipe, Shirou forcefully shoved the monster backwards with an open palm, where it ended up painfully colliding against the kobald behind it and disorienting the both of them.

The outstretched claw of the third monster rapidly closed in on him. He brought the metal pipe up to redirect the blow, before spinning around and utilizing the momentum to elbow the goblin in the face, stunning it long enough for him to finish off its core.

The third-rate magus quickly dealt with the two remaining dazed monsters, before immediately turning his attention back to the kobold that managed to get through him.

The final monster was currently cornering the house owner against a wall, gradually advancing forward even as the man desperately parried its blows with his sword. The ex-adventurer's former skills enabled him to hold his own in a direct confrontation against the monster, but the limits of his normal human abilities clearly presented themselves as the kobold's claws inched closer and closer to his face.

Realizing that he might not reach the man in time, Shirou took a gamble and threw his weapon like a spear. The sharpened piece of metal sailed through the air in a straight line before piercing the kobold through its torso.

"Graaaaah!"

The kobold let out a pained scream and clutched its side, but the wound wasn't a fatal one.

It did, however, give the man the opening he needed to finish the monster off with a stab to its magic stone.

As the last enemy dissolved into ashes, the former adventurer half-collapsed against the wall in a sitting position, taking deep breaths to get his breathing back under control.

"Are you alright?" Shirou asked in concern as he walked over to the man.

"I'm…fine…thank you," the man let out in between labored breaths.

As Shirou waited for the man to regain his breath, he thought back to the battle that was just fought.

Thankfully, it seemed that with careful reinforcement, his current abilities were enough to overpower the typical monster. Granted, kobolds and goblins were at the very bottom in terms of threat level, and he also had to consider that surface monsters were supposed to be significantly weaker than their dungeon counterparts. But at least the third-rate magus could say that he was at a good starting point.

"Haah…it's been years since I've had to fight monsters… You really saved me this time, thanks young man."

"It's nothing really. I couldn't just ignore what was happening," Shirou casually replied.

The man took a few more seconds to recompose himself, and then fell silent with a contemplative expression, as if deciding whether or not to voice what was in his mind.

"…I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but what was that back there?" he asked after some hesitation. "I thought that you weren't an adventurer?"

And there it was.

Although the question was inconvenient, Shirou had already been fully expecting it the moment he decided to utilize his magecraft to save the man. With the kind of strength and speed he openly displayed during that short fight, he would have been more surprised if the man didn't have any doubts at all.

"I'm not an adventurer," Shirou reiterated. "What I did just now was entirely because of some other… special abilities of mine," he hesitatingly spoke.

"…Hmm, I see," the man nodded slowly, before turning to look at the reshaped metal pipe that dropped to the floor after the last kobold disappeared.

"By any chance, does it have something to do with that strange-looking spear over there, which I'm certain used to be a metal pipe that I kept in the storage room upstairs?" the man curiously asked.

Shirou could only awkwardly nod his head in reply.

The man observed Shirou's uncomfortable reaction intently, before letting out a small smile.

"Alright, I see how it is," the house owner casually spoke. "If you don't want to tell me about it, that's fine. You did save my life after all."

"Thank you, I appreciate it," Shirou gratefully said, as he relaxed his shoulders and finally allowed the tension of the past fight to wear off.

Immediately afterwards, however, an ear-splitting scream resounded from outside the house, followed by the familiar sound of monster shrieks. Shirou spun around towards the direction of the noise and narrowed his eyes.

"Sorry mister, I have to go."

Recasting his fading self-reinforcement, the third-rate magus picked up his makeshift weapon again and prepared to exit the house.

But before he could, a hand grabbed onto his wrist and kept him in place. Clicking his tongue in impatience, Shirou turned around, half-expecting to have to put up with the man attempting to dissuade him from going out.

Instead, he found the hilt of a sword being held out before him, much to his confusion.

"Take it," the man briefly conveyed. "You'll need it more than I will."

For a few seconds, Shirou just silently stared at the man, surprised that he would willingly part with his primary means of defense that easily. But after seeing the determined look in the former adventurer's eyes, he quickly cast aside his uncertainty and dropped his old weapon.

Carefully taking the outstretched sword into his hands, Shirou gave a wordless nod in reply, and took off towards the door.

The night wasn't over just yet.


	7. Chapter 7

Chaos.

That was the only way to describe the current situation outside.

Dozens of Goblins and Kobolds were running amok in the area, tearing up crops and invading homes. The sheer contrast to the peace and tranquility from just minutes earlier came as almost as much of a shock to Shirou as the first time he witnessed Berserker abruptly materializing in the dead of night.

It was a strangely surreal sight, one that was nearly enough to make Shirou freeze up in incomprehension and waste precious time—but thankfully, while his thoughts were stuck, his instincts weren't.

Before he knew it, he found himself automatically dashing towards the nearest endangered household. Once his mind rebooted, he tirelessly scanned the surrounding vicinity, trying to pinpoint where all of these monsters suddenly appeared from without warning.

As his vision swept across one of the wider dirt roads constructed on the farm, he noticed that an especially dense concentration of monsters were centered around a particular point, and seemed to be spreading out from there.

' _Wait, isn't that...?'_

Shirou could felt the beginning of a sinking feeling taking root in his stomach. Focusing his strengthened eyesight on the potential lead, he attempted to discern the object that had caught his attention, while hoping that his eyes were deceiving him.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

He had gone out anticipating a number of possible reasons as to how monsters managed to get into the village. Causes such as a broken down section of the wall, or a hidden tunnel connected to the outside area had all occurred to him.

What he wasn't expecting was that the source of the current invasion was he himself, or rather, the group of visitors that he was a part of.

From within the same storage carts that he had been travelling with for an entire day, a large number of Goblins and Kobalds were relentlessly pouring out into the surrounding area.

A part of him found the sight unbelievable, but his eyes clearly weren't deceiving him. Everything he could take in pointed to that one cause.

However, any further thoughts on the matter had to be temporarily put aside as he approached the neighboring house. Focusing his sights on one of the windows, he briefly glimpsed a woman frantically running past the frame, followed by a group of voracious monsters trailing closely behind.

Putting on a burst of speed, Shirou sprinted until he was only several meters away from the house. Without slowing down, he cleared the remaining distance with a powerful leap that took him straight through the window. Ignoring the shards of glass that bounced off his reinforced skin, he bled off his excess momentum with a roll, and then immediately brandished his newly acquired sword.

The pursuing monsters hadn't yet registered his sudden entrance, and he wasn't about to give them the chance. Firmly gripping the hilt with both hands, Shirou rushed forwards and executed a wide horizontal slash, cleanly decapitating the entire row of goblins that still had their backs turned to him.

As the headless bodies limply dropped to the floor, Shirou internally marveled at the craftsmanship of the weapon in his hands. Even without reinforcement of the blade, it had enabled him to cleave through the flesh and bone of four monsters with barely any resistance at all.

Shirou was still apprehensive at the idea of depriving the former adventurer of his ability to defend himself, but he couldn't deny that having the weapon undoubtedly made his job a lot easier.

His momentary musings were interrupted as more enemies rushed through the door of the house, drawn in by the sounds of conflict. Wincing slightly at the shrill scream emitted by the woman behind him, he directly met the opposing group of monsters. The short but hellish period of tutelage he had under the King of Knights herself passed through his mind, as Shirou called on the experience he had received to furiously parry and counter the oncoming attacks.

Kobolds lunged greedily towards him with extended claws, intent on ripping apart human flesh and bathing in blood—instead, they found themselves on the receiving end of lacerations, as a razor-sharp blade cleaved through those very claws, and continued on to carve straight through their hearts.

Without letting a single monster through, Shirou's slashes formed an impenetrable barrier of steel that repaid assault with dismemberment. Try as they might, none of the monsters could force their way through the relentless swings. Even the few that tried to circle around the sword-wielding butcher towards the easier prey were brutally cut off, the teen's agility more than enough for him to deal with these stragglers and immediately return to hold off the main bulk.

Had all the monsters spread out from the very beginning, Shirou would have likely been unable to keep every single one from getting past him. But despite the apparent intelligence that had enabled these creatures to think of hiding in the storage carts and mounting a surprise attack, it seemed that the majority of them were unable to decide on any other course of action, save for charging straight ahead into the teen's glistening blade.

In the process of hacking and slashing, a vague sense of dissonance with the way he fought sprouted in his mind. Shirou had certainly spent nearly two weeks honing his sword skills by sparring with his servant, but those lessons had only enabled him to learn the absolute basics of sword fighting, with the sole aim of increasing his survivability.

Yet not a single trace of that amateurish skill was evident in his current movements.

On the contrary, every action was so precise that it shocked even he who was performing them. The manner in which he gripped the hilt, the angle at which he swung the blade—everything about the way he was fighting felt unfamiliar and foreign.

Yet in a blatant contradiction to that feeling, his body continued to freely execute those advanced techniques that it had never even learned before. This odd feeling felt somewhat familiar to the third-rate magus, but the origin of it eluded him at the current moment.

Despite how unsettling the sensation felt, Shirou couldn't deny that it enabled him to fight against the monsters far better than he otherwise would have been able to with his own subpar swordsmanship.

Soon enough, the stream of monsters rushing in through the door gradually ebbed, as they finally realized that trying to force their way into this particular house was a futile effort. Wiping away the thin layer of sweat that accumulated on his forehead, Shirou flicked the excess blood off of his blade, and then turned around to look at the woman he had been defending for the last few minutes.

He found her currently huddled in a corner with her face to the wall, shivering uncontrollably with her eyes closed, and ears firmly covered.

"Um…miss?" The teen called out in concern. "Everything's all right now."

Without showing even a single sign of response, the woman continued to face the wall while whimpering in fear. It looked like his words just completely passed through her ears.

Shirou was half-inclined to drop his weapon and attempt to calm her down, but he resisted the urge to, knowing that there were far more important things to worry about at this moment.

Leaving behind the shell-shocked woman with no small amount of regret, Shirou ran past the door and scanned the area to identify where he would next be needed.

However, as he took in the view around him, a distressing realization caused him to stop in his tracks.

' _Not good, there are too many of them!'_

There were over 10 large carts that had been brought in from their trip, each one designed to store a large amount of goods—and almost every single one had been infiltrated by monsters.

All of the bodyguards who had arrived with the caravan were sleeping over at the inn, and the majority of the town guards were posted on the other side where the main gate—the weakest part of the wall—was. That meant Shirou was most likely one of the only individuals in this part of the village who was capable of fighting monsters. There simply wasn't enough manpower to protect all of the vulnerable villagers.

With all the noise and destruction happening, there was a high chance the others would have realized that something was wrong by now, and were on their way at this very moment. But at the rate that the destruction was spreading, too many lives were going to be lost by the time they arrived.

As much as Shirou wanted to immediately head out, he had to stop and think of another way to deal with the situation. He needed to at least delay the destruction long enough for help to come, but the monsters were far too spread out at this point in time for him to do anything on his own.

' _Crap, if only there was a way to deal with all of them at once. No, of course there wouldn't be something that convenient. In that case, is there anything I can do to turn their attention away from all of the villagers?'_

As Shirou frantically worked his mind on overdrive to find a way around this mess, his gaze happened to sweep across a tiny red stone on the ground nearby that was releasing a faint glimmer of light.

In the process of staring at the misplaced object, the beginnings of an extremely reckless plan started to form in the teen's mind.

' _If this idea doesn't end up killing me, Tohsaka definitely would if she ever found out about it,'_ Shirou dryly thought to himself as he picked up the magic stone, and rushed back towards the house that he left just moments ago.

Bursting through the closed door, he found the woman he had saved before, still huddled up in the corner in fright. He ran up to her and forcefully shook her on the shoulders to grab her attention.

"Miss, listen!" he spoke in a loud voice. "I need you to help me collect all of the magic stones that you have right now."

"Wha-? I-I-I don't know what—"

"Hurry! More people are going to die at this rate!" He yelled over her with an urgent tone.

"Eeep! R-right away!" the woman blurted out in a nervous fluster, as she took off upstairs to the second floor of the house. Silently apologizing to her for his rudeness, Shirou got to work dismantling the nearby magic stone devices and salvaging the stones dropped by the slain monsters.

In the process of forcefully ripping out a purple stone from its casing, Shirou mentally went over his improvised plan.

When he initially laid eyes on the red magic stone outside, he had been reminded of the earlier strange behavior that the monsters invading the former adventurer's house exhibited. Recalling how the Kobolds and Goblins seemed to purposely go for the magic stones embedded within magic stone devices, it occurred to him that he could use that unusual attraction to his advantage.

Just as Shirou took apart the final device in the room, the woman came running back down the stairs carrying an entire box of stones.

" _Huff_ … _huff_ …will this do?" she said while panting, but having evidently calmed down significantly from her earlier panic.

"Yeah, that's more than enough, thanks," Shirou gratefully replied, as he dropped his own stones into the box and took it from her.

"What are you going to do with all of these?" the woman asked in curiosity.

"Sorry, no time to explain," Shirou apologized as he took to the door with the stones in hand. "Whatever you do, don't leave this house," he briefly warned on his way out.

Once he got out of the house, he sprinted towards an open patch of deserted land. Looking around the village, he took note of how the monsters were spreading further and further in— with any luck, his current idea would reverse that situation.

Reaching the empty space as fast as he could, Shirou took a moment to catch his breath as he dropped the box he was holding. Picking up a handful of stones, he proceeded to scatter them around the general vicinity, making sure to leave them in the open as conspicuously as possible. Over time, a rough circle of multicolored gems started to form around the teen, one that practically lit up the surrounding pitch-black area in a subtle glow.

Once the box was nearly emptied, Shirou dropped the remaining stones in front of him and gathered them into a tight cluster. After throwing aside the now-useless container, he took a deep breath to prepare for the incoming mayhem that would potentially ensue, if his plan succeeded, before lifting up his sword with both arms.

' _It's all or nothing.'_

He brought down the blade on the cluster of magic stones with all of his reinforced strength.

 _*CRACK*_

Accompanied by the sound of glass shattering, a dense concentration of magical energy burst forth from the fractured magic stones. The sudden release of mana was so suffocating that it nearly caused Shirou to keel over in dizziness.

After regaining his balance, Shirou got into position with both hands on the sword, awaiting any signs of response.

Soon enough, the reverberation of incessant footsteps started to ring audibly in his ears, followed by the outlines of countless small figures closing in from every possible direction, all drawn in by the sudden release of magical energy in the air, as well as the attractive sight of innumerable magic stones littering the floor around him.

As Shirou prepared himself to face the literal tide that was about to rush over him, a part of him absently wondered whether it would have been better to ask for help from some of the other individuals in the area who were capable of fighting.

He immediately dismissed such thoughts; it would have likely taken far too long to contact and rally the thinly spread fighting potential. Moreover, Shirou wasn't comfortable with dragging others into his own fight. He was the one who came up with such a suicidal plan, so it only made sense that his was the only life that should be put at risk. As it was, he would just have to fight and delay the oncoming horde for as long as he was able to by himself.

Just as the first wave of monsters was nearing him, a sudden thought entered Shirou's mind. Freeing one of his hands from the sword hilt, he reached down and picked up one of the many magic stones that were lying around.

Firmly gripping the rock in his hand, he concentrated and injected some of his prana into it, all the while utilizing structural grasping to keep track of the magical energy coursing throughout the interior. What he was trying to do was fundamentally similar to the failed attempts at reinforcement that he made ever since his circuits were opened.

With sudden access to more prana than he ever imagined he would have, the third-rate magus had frequently misjudged the amount of magical energy he poured into objects, causing said objects to break apart as their structures were unable to withstand the excess amounts of foreign energy. In this case, he took the magic stone, which should already have been filled with magical energy proportionate to its size, and added even more energy to it, purposely making it unstable.

In the process of analyzing the stone, Shirou noticed something peculiar happening. Initially, he assumed that the prana he was injecting would blend in with the magical energy already in the stone. Instead it appeared almost like the two energies were actively rejecting each other, and causing violent disruptions within the container.

Normally, this would have been cause for rather major concern. But in this case, it was just what he needed.

Soon enough, the purple stone started to emit ungodly amounts of dazzling light, as the crystal shook and strained in an attempt to restrain the raging magical energy within. While internally praying that the overloaded stone wouldn't prematurely detonate in his hand, Shirou singled out the densest concentration of monsters within the approaching mob.

Spreading his two feet apart, he lifted his front leg up and twisted his body. Focusing one last time at his intended target, the teen stamped his raised leg down hard enough to crack the earth, while simultaneously unfurling his twisted body and sending every ounce of his reinforced strength towards his throwing arm. At the moment of extension, he released his grip on the stone.

Barely a second later, the glowing missile made impact.

 _ ***KABOOM!***_

The sudden flash of light that accompanied the spectacular explosion swept away the darkness and forced Shirou to quickly cover his eyes. A searing wave of heat was released, which he could feel on his exposed skin even from how far away he was standing.

Once the ringing in his ears subsided to manageable level, he risked peeking open his eyes to witness the results of his impromptu handheld bomb.

"…Huh."

Where just a few seconds ago, a large cluster of Goblins were gathered, now, a smoking crater that looked to be several meters wide stood in their place. Within that patch of blackened land, he could see the charred, backish-green remains of the creatures that had been caught right in the epicenter of the detonation.

It looked like the attack had also inflicted damage beyond the initial blast zone, if the few limbless monsters that he could spot writing in agony at varying distances around the crater were any indication.

All in all, the damage exceeded his initial expectations of such a tiny stone by a rather large degree.

That single explosion had caused the vast majority of charging monsters to stop in their tracks—likely from the shock at witnessing such an unbelievable scene. Shirou could somewhat sympathize with that disbelief; if he ever saw the equivalent of his own heart violently blowing up like that, he'd probably be fairly unnerved himself.

That didn't mean he was going to be considerate and pass up this opportunity though.

Filling up another magic stone with his prana, he lobbed it at a separate group of tightly packed monsters and squinted as yet another flash of light eradicated the creatures unfortunate enough to be standing nearby. With that second explosion, the mob of monsters frantically resumed their charge in earnest, likely in an attempt to overwhelm the teen before he could inflict more damage.

While apologizing in his heart to the villagers for performing what was essentially a glassing of their all-important farmland, Shirou took the chance to detonate two additional magic stones, before he resumed his earlier two-handed stance with the broadsword.

As appealing as the idea of dealing with all of the enemies from a safe distance sounded, it was far too costly in terms of prana. If he tried overcharging too many stones, he ran the risk of leaving himself too depleted to sustain his self-reinforcement, which was tantamount to committing suicide in this situation.

Once the first monster stepped into range, he violently kicked off the ground with his leg, appearing in front of the startled creature in the blink of an eye.

Maintaining his speed, Shirou ran his blade through the Kobold's magic stone, before swiftly spinning around to slash two other enemies that lunged at him from behind.

Without missing a beat, he charged through a gap in the encirclement and executed a flurry of strikes to keep the encroaching monsters at bay.

If there was anything that the teen could take comfort in with this situation, it was the lack of a stationary position to defend. In his earlier fights, he had been forced to play defensively in order to protect the vulnerable villagers who were being targeted.

Now, he took full advantage of his newfound freedom to duck and weave around the enclosing horde, always keeping a lookout for the tiniest openings that would enable him to avoid being surrounded.

As Shirou continued to slash, stab, and parry, that sense of incongruity he felt earlier came back to him.

Now in the middle of a more intense fight, he was able to get a better feel for the foreign movements that his body was unconsciously executing. If he had to put the sensation into words, it felt as if the sword in his hands was the one doing the actual fighting, and his body was merely following through with the weapon's directions.

It felt similar to those times that he had traced and fought with Caliburn during the Grail War; whether it was fending off Berserker's blows or deflecting Gilgamesh's bladed projectiles, Shirou's skills alone would have never enabled him to accomplish feats of that level.

Instead, by faithfully reproducing each and every aspect of the original Sword in the Stone, the third-rate magus was able to draw out the latent experience engraved within the blade over its lifetime of being used as King Arthur's weapon of choice.

Perhaps in this case, he was unconsciously delving into this sword's memory, and drawing out the skills and techniques of its previous wielder as he was fighting.

However—

' _It's still not quite there yet,'_ Shirou internally remarked to himself, as he sidestepped to avoid a Kobald's descending claws, before mercilessly decapitating it in return.

Some part of him could instinctively tell that the current ability he was exhibiting was only a fraction of the original wielder's full capabilities; attempting to draw out more would likely require further training.

But perhaps this was a blessing in disguise, given that trying to keep up with Caliburn's ingrained experience for even a few seconds was already enough to leave the teen with torn muscles and broken bones. Considering that the skills stored within the borrowed weapon were those of an advanced level 3 adventurer, Shirou doubted he would be able to safely handle the full extent of the sword's stored technique with his current ability.

Before he could continue down that line of thought, a sudden increase in the hostile presences surrounding him forced the teen to direct all of his remaining attention to the fight at hand. As he leapt off of a Goblin's shoulder to escape the latest encirclement, he surveyed his surroundings while still in the air.

Scanning every direction, Shirou noted that the number of monsters charging towards his current location had since increased by a significant amount.

' _Good, it's all going according to plan,'_ he calmly thought to himself, as he landed back on the ground and resumed running while slashing.

When he had first shattered the magic stones, he naturally wasn't expecting just that much to be able to attract the attention of all the monsters in the area; what he was banking on was that the subsequent heavy fighting he would be engaged in would finish off the job.

Earlier that day, the ex-adventurer had informed him of how prolonging intense fights in the dungeon tended to attract more monsters, because they were drawn to signs of fighting on an instinctual level.

While most people would have taken this as a warning to not do precisely that, Shirou, being who he was, decided to put that information to use in the exact opposite manner.

Knowing that every additional monster he drew to himself meant one less source of danger to the villagers, he continued to battle against the ever-increasing horde of enemies.

But that small sense of comfort didn't change the increasingly dire situation that Shirou was facing.

Even as he desperately fought on, sweat poured down every inch of his body, and his arms grew heavier with each additional swing he made, to say nothing of his legs that were constantly on the move.

Numerous small cuts and gashes from near misses littered his body. Initially he had the luxury of counter-attacking to whittle down the monsters around him, but as their numbers mounted over time, he had less and less opportunities to go on the offensive. With even more foes inbound, Shirou held no illusions as to how much longer he could hold out for.

The fatal mistake came just moments later.

Distracted as he was by the ravenous monsters, Shirou failed to notice the excessive amounts of blood that had been spilt over the ground. As he leaped to the side to avoid the simultaneous strikes of several monsters, he slipped on a puddle of thick blood upon landing.

The teen barely managed to find proper purchase on the ground with his other foot, but in the time that it took for him to regain his balance, two Goblin's lunged straight towards him.

With his body in a position where he couldn't brace himself, Shirou was struck head-on by the full body weight of the two opposing monsters and tackled to the ground.

Before the Goblins could get back into position to attack, he quickly decapitated one and kicked the other away, but the damage was already done.

With his body lying in a prone position on the floor, the rest of the monsters charged in gleefully, intent on finally tearing apart the lone individual that had managed to elude them for so long.

Right as the tip of the first claw was about to cut into him, however, an axe came flying in from behind, embedding itself through the chest of the oblivious victim.

The Goblin had nary a chance to scream out in pain before its body turned to ash, face still frozen in an expression of shock.

In the blink of an eye, numerous adventurers came charging into the scene with weapons drawn, violently cutting apart the screaming monsters like a tidal wave of metal.

As the hostile presence around him was cleared away in a heartbeat, Shirou let out a sigh of relief towards the reinforcements that arrived just in the nick of time. Wearily exerting his overstrained arms, he pushed off the bodies of slain monsters that ended up dropped on top of him, and sat up.

Among the many armed-individuals that ran past him, a certain bearded adventurer in dark blue armor stopped by Shirou's side and extended a hand out to him.

"You alright there lad?"

"I'm fine, thanks," Shirou gratefully replied as he took the hand and allowed himself to be pulled up.

"Good." The man nodded once, before letting go and pulling his axe out from the dead Goblin. "Just sit tight for a second, we'll be done in no time."

As he watched the leader join his subordinates in the skirmish, Shirou could immediately tell that statement was no exaggeration.

The monsters had been so focused on him until now that the sudden entrance of so many additional fighters had thrown them into complete disarray. The fact that practically all of the invading enemies had been drawn to this one spot only made the slaughter that much quicker, in the face of foes that were many times stronger than them.

In just a few minutes, the remaining monsters decided to cut their losses, and attempted to escape through the small forest leading to the other side of the village. A few adventurers broke off from the group to chase down the fleeing monsters, while the majority stayed back to clean up any remaining stragglers and deal with the aftermath of the attack.

Sure enough, the leader of the bodyguards that Shirou had become acquainted with came walking back to him.

"Here." He took out a potion from his pouch and handed it to the teen. "A little something for all of your hard work."

"Thanks for the reward, boss," Shirou responded with a wry smile as he took the potion and greedily drank from it.

Immediately, he could feel the familiar effects of the rejuvenating serum restore some of his depleted stamina. He consumed around half of the bottle before storing it away in a pocket, in case he would need the precious resource at a later point in time.

"Well I'll be damned though," the adventurer suddenly spoke up. "I knew you were hiding something from me back then, didn't think you were actually an adventurer yourself this whole time."

"Sorry, it wasn't my intention to conceal anything," Shirou apologized while sheepishly rubbing his hair. "But I'm really not an adventurer though."

"Oh come on, don't give me that now, lad," the adventurer spoke incredulously. "You honestly expect me to believe that after what I just saw?

"I know it sounds unbelievable, but it's the truth." Inwardly, the teen started to panic. He couldn't outright admit the truth, but he'd be hard-pressed to come up with a convincing cover story if he was forced to mouth on.

"Hmm… " The man stared pointedly at Shirou with suspicious eyes, but relaxed his expression shortly after. "All right, I understand. There's no helping it then."

Shirou let out a breath of relief at that.

"I know how some gods can be rather peculiar, it's fine if you're too embarrassed to say."

' _What exactly do you understand?!'_

The redhead was about to break out in protest to defend his crumbling image, but stopped himself after seeing the man raise his hands in a placating manner.

"Just kidding, just kidding, you don't have to say anything. It's none of my business anyway," he spoke with a short chuckle. "At any rate, there're more important things to worry about."

All at once, the man's easy-going expression turned serious.

Sensing the change in atmosphere, Shirou put aside his slight annoyance and listened intently.

"I didn't see you around the inn," the man noted. "Does that mean you were here the whole time?"

Shirou nodded once.

"Then, do you know how they managed to get in?"

"…" It was obvious what the leader was referring to by "they", but Shirou hesitated as he thought of how to go about revealing the information. The first person anyone would suspect upon hearing the facts would be someone within the travelling group, so carelessly disclosing the information could lead to unwarranted suspicion.

On the other hand, hiding the important details could prove to be just as damaging, so he decided to spill out all of the details in the end regardless.

"The carts."

"…What?" the man uttered with a perplexed expression.

"It was the carts that we brought with us to the village, all the monsters were hidden inside. They escaped and attacked after the storage carts were brought to this side a few hours ago."

At some point during Shirou's explanation, the surroundings had gone eerily quiet, as people within hearing distance stopped chatting in favor of staring blankly in his direction.

"…Hey, stop screwing around," the man spoke in disbelief, his words a likely reflection of everyone else's thoughts at the moment. "How could something like that possibly happen?"

Shirou shrugged lightly in response, but continued staring back with an unwavering expression.

That alone seemed to be more than enough to convey his response.

"…Ah shit," the man quietly cursed. He proceeded to lowly bring a hand up to cover his entire face, staying still in that position for several seconds. His broad chest visibly fell and rose as he took in several deep breaths.

Eventually, he slowly took his hand off of his face, and looked down in contemplation.

"We were careful to look over each and every cart before leaving the city gates, and there was definitely nothing out of the ordinary," he murmured out loud, more to himself than anyone in particular.

"That means, the only opportunity for monsters to have snuck in was during our ride here, when a _certain_ group of people weren't keeping a proper lookout…"

All the adventurers standing nearby immediately recoiled back in fear, as their leader looked up and stared at them with cold fury. Evidently, the leader trusted his men enough to conclude that none of them were directly responsible for the events, but not enough to dismiss their laziness as an indirect cause.

"C-come on boss, it's not our fault!" One of the cowering men hesitantly stepped up and attempted to protest in place of everyone else. "We had our hands full defending against all those other attacks, there's no way we could've kept our attention on other things the whole time!"

The leader continued to stare sharply at his subordinates, and the men grew visibly tenser. But much to their relief, he eventually backed down with a resigned exhale of air.

"…This is gonna be a pain to deal with," he uttered, in a tone that clearly indicated he would much rather be anywhere else but here.

Shirou could sympathize with that frustration. If word got out that the caravan they were associated with was responsible for releasing a horde of monsters onto a village, a thorough investigation would be unavoidable. Their entire group would be put under intense scrutiny and suspicion by the village, and possibly even Orario itself.

While Shirou stood waiting for the leader to fully sort out his thoughts, a sudden urgent shout rang throughout the area, attracting everybody's attention.

"EVERYONE, WE HAVE TO GET BACK!"

Turning towards the direction of the voice, Shirou caught sight of a lone adventurer bursting through the forest that separated the two parts of the village in a frantic run.

"Ah great, what is it now?" The leader complained in irritation as he ran up to meet the newcomer. The rest of the nearby adventurers also dropped what they were doing and gathered around out of curiosity.

"B-boss! We have to get back, now!" the messenger gasped out as he panted harshly.

"Wait, calm down Bran, what happened back there?" The leader implored as he handed the sweating man a water pouch. "The few small-fry that escaped shouldn't have been that much trouble, right?"

"N-no, that's not it!" The subordinate said after taking a large gulp of water. "It's the gates!" he shouted out in alarm towards everyone.

"There's been a breach, monsters are invading the village!"

* * *

 _Author Notes:_

…

Erm… yeah

So shit just sorta piled up, and before I knew it summer was over, and then semester started, and then even more shit piled up. Anyway, I apologize for the crazy long delay and the rather short chapter.

Was initially planning on posting this and the next chapter up as one entry, but the word count ballooned up over time, and I felt that it would've been a bit jarring to post a 13k+ chapter all of a sudden. I've got the next part almost fully written out, so with any luck it should be up fairly soon (hopefully not another 4 months).

Anyway, I've noticed a few people were concerned about how weak I was making Shirou. As shown in this chapter, he's well equipped enough to take on surface monsters without too much trouble, unless he gets swarmed. Keep in mind he's only going to be improving from this point onwards, even more so when he eventually gets a Falna, so I hope that his current level of strength isn't making any of you tear your hair out in frustration.

That's it for now, hopefully you'll hear back from me pretty soon. Until then, keep those reviews coming. I really appreciate them!


	8. Chapter 8

""…""

The area fell into silence as everyone stared in stupefaction at the messenger, unable to comprehend the news that he brought with him.

A single wordless croak broke the stillness of the night. An instant after, as if that sound was a single spark that fell upon a withered dry tree, the entire crowd erupted into frenzy.

"What the hell, are you serious?!"

"It shouldn't even be possible for surface monsters to break through the gate!"

"What idiot let them through?!"

Complaints and accusations were wildly thrown around from every angle, but the frantic voice of the messenger immediately cut off the arguments.

"We're running out of time! The guys back there won't be able to hold out for much longer!"

It was after that statement was made, that the full gravity of the situation finally appeared to set in.

"Tch, no choice then." With an irritated click of his tongue, the bearded adventurer called out to one of his men. "Gerard! Take your group and tell everyone else about this. The rest of you are with me!"

"Roger that!"

Upon hearing the booming voice of their leader, the rest of the adventurers immediately acknowledged the order and threw away their indecision. A small group of people broke off and spread out into the farm, while everyone else followed the man towards the forest.

Naturally, Shirou couldn't just ignore what was happening, so he decided to follow the latter group.

As they entered the trees, Shirou was trailing right behind the leader and the adventurer that initially delivered the bad news. With his reinforced hearing, he was able to pick up bits of a conversation that they were currently having.

"—A few minutes after you left, an Orc suddenly charged in from the direction of the mountains and broke down the gate with a single hit, and a whole horde of monsters came pouring in after it."

"What happened after that?"

"Sorry boss, don't know. The second they broke through I came rushing over here."

"Shit. What the hell is with this timing? Killer ants bursting through walls, Goblins and kobolds hiding out in carts, and now this—there's definitely something fishy going on here."

Shirou found himself readily agreeing with that sentiment. Even though he hadn't experienced much of this world yet, the sequence of attacks that occurred up to now were far too coordinated to be called mere happenstance.

There had to be some foreign element at work here, but there wasn't enough information to come to a conclusion yet.

After a few more minutes of running, Shirou managed to catch a glimpse of the area beyond the trees. What greeted him was not a welcoming sight.

The situation was even worse than the previous attack. It wasn't just weak Goblins and Kobalds that were invading; among the horde he also spotted killer ants, war shadows, and a host of other unfamiliar monsters, all of which looked far stronger than the two weakest mobs of the dungeon.

Whoever was responsible for the initial surprise attack likely had no choice but to sneak in Goblins and Kobolds, since any bigger monsters would have been impossible to hide. But with the gate destroyed, the larger and more deadly monsters were now free to pour into the village.

One specific monster looked especially threatening; A fat, pig-headed creature that looked like a vastly enlarged version of a normal Goblin was currently engaged in battle with a group of adventurers near the center of the village. This hideous monster was most likely the Orc he had overheard during the conversation earlier, the one that tore down the village gates in a single blow.

What caught Shirou's eye in particular was the jagged metal blade that the monster was freely swinging about. The weapon was huge; easily as large as the gigantic axe-sword that Berserker carried throughout the Grail War.

Shirou had heard from the former adventurer how monsters would occasional pick up and wield weapons produced in the dungeon or dropped by people, but he certainly hadn't been expecting to see an example of one so soon, and on the surface at that.

A single glance was all it took for Shirou to realize that this Orc was by far the strongest enemy in the group, which made him immediately single out the beast as his target.

More than that, however, was the slight sense of ominousness he got from the creature. He didn't know what could have possibly evoked such an emotion in him for something he had seen for the first time, but it wasn't something he was able to ignore.

Just as he was about to take off, a hand moved to block his path.

"I know what you're thinking lad, don't do it."

"But-"

"Nope," the leader cut off Shirou's protests in an adamant tone. "I admit that I greatly underestimated you, but this particular beast's something else entirely—call it my adventurer's intuition."

Shirou was about to argue back, but the man interrupted him and motioned towards the rest of the village.

"I'm not telling you to stay out of the fight. There are plenty of other places where you're needed right now."

Taking in the sight of wrecked buildings and the sound of screaming villagers, he begrudgingly accepted what the adventurer was trying to say. But the notion of leaving others to deal with the most dangerous threat in the village still gnawed at him.

As if he was aware of teen's wavering, the adventurer calmly placed a hand on Shirou's shoulder.

"Relax, I'll be bringing along my strongest men to take that thing down. You just focus on saving the villagers and keeping any of the small-fry from interrupting our fight, got it?"

"…Fine." Shirou reluctantly nodded, barely keeping his impulses in check.

After giving him a reassuring smile, the bearded adventurer called a few individuals from the group to his side, and swiftly rushed towards the Orc with his assembled team.

Taking one last look at the imposing creature, Shirou forcibly restrained his anxiety and turned his attention to the other monsters wrecking havoc in the village.

As he dived into the fray, a peculiar detail caught his attention.

Situated a few meters away from where the Orc was fighting, a large multicolored object was giving off a distinct glimmer of light. Upon a closer look, he soon discovered that the object was actually a gigantic pile of individual magic stones. Even at this moment, monsters ferrying more stones were coming in from every direction and further adding to the growing mound.

' _The Goblins and kobolds before were also doing the same thing, but why?'_ Shirou tried to rack his brains on the matter, but promptly shifted it aside to focus on the fight at hand.

Immediately, he spotted a small family being cornered against a house by a group of killer ants. A mother and a child were huddled in fright against the wall, while the father was bravely attempting to fend off the voracious insects with wild sweeps of a rusted rake.

With his first target determined, he dashed towards the endangered villagers. Grabbing a small rock from the ground without stopping, he quickly reinforced it before throwing it as hard as he could at the closest ant.

The rock, strengthened to be as strong as steel and thrown at a speed equivalent to an Olympic level baseball pitch, easily punched through the hard outer shell and embedded itself deep into the monster's body. As the wounded insect dropped to the ground and writhed in agony, the rest of the killer ants turned away from the villagers, their attention now fully on the new intruder.

Emitting feral grinding sounds from their jagged teeth, the whole mob aggressively rushed towards him in a tidal wave of blood red.

Without letting up on his sprint, Shirou readied his blade behind him and positioned himself to meet the oncoming charge head on.

—Or he would have, if not for what followed.

" **GRRRRRROOOOOOAAARRR!"**

A horrific, bestial scream resounded throughout the area, drowning out all other sounds of conflict and chaos, and plunging the entire battlefield into stillness for a brief instant.

Even amidst the literal war that was being waged in the village, that single sound fully engulfed the stage, silencing monster and man alike with the authority of an absolute ruler.

Shirou wasn't aware of the source of that sound, but the sheer overbearing intent held within it was enough to fill his very being with a sense of foreboding that he rarely experienced. Before he could contemplate the meaning of it, the sound of rapid footsteps drew his mind back to reality.

' _Oh no—!'_

While the teen had been distracted, the ants had taken the liberty of resuming their charge towards him. Cursing his carelessness in relaxing his guard, Shirou hurriedly raised his sword up in an attempt to block the first few attacks, and hopefully buy time to fall back.

But much to the teen's surprise, the expected force bearing down on him never came. Right before collision, the horde of ants literally split apart and scuttled around him, as if he was never their target to begin with.

Glancing around, Shirou could see that it wasn't just the Killer Ants acting this way. Everywhere else monsters were breaking off from confrontations and fleeing—each one appearing to advance towards a single common point. Faced with a bad premonition, he followed the fleeing enemies as they scuttled to the center of the village.

Right as he turned the corner of a house, he was forced to stop in his tracks in the face of a large gathering of monsters. The prominent sounds of fighting had completely ceased by this point.

For some inexplicable reason, it looked like every monster that had initially invaded the village was now scrambling to retreat to this one point.

Looking around, he caught sight of several adventurers and guards assembling nearby and cautiously observing the situation, likely waiting for more men to arrive first before mounting an assault.

It was obvious that attempting to oppose the huge concentration of monsters without every ounce of fighting potential available would be nothing less than suicide.

After reaching them, he walked up to one of the adventurers that he recognized went with the leader to fight the Orc.

"Hey, what happened here?"

"Hm? Oh, you're that kid from before," he absently noted. "Beats me. We were doing pretty well against that Orc until just a while ago, but out of nowhere it suddenly screamed out like its mother just died, and the rest is as you see it. We had no choice but to withdraw."

"Wait, that Orc can control other monsters?" Shirou uttered incredulously.

"Wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it," he replied with unconcealed astonishment. "Never heard of anything like it before, then again, this entire day's been full of surprises."

That was interesting.

At first, he assumed that there was someone behind the scenes responsible for manipulating the monsters in these recent attacks. But if that Orc really had the ability to command its brethren, then wasn't there a possibility that it was that very perpetrator?

Assuming it was, this latest development possibly occurred because of Shirou's prior interference. Thanks to his actions, the adventurers dealt with the initial surprise attack far quicker than they otherwise would have, and were able to swiftly respond to the attack on the village gates that came soon after.

Still, something didn't feel right. If that Orc really had anything resembling intelligence, what was the point of recalling all of its allies at this moment? Even if its side was already losing ground before this, it should have been better for them to spread out to take full advantage of their superior numbers.

All of a sudden, his musings were interrupted by a loud yell coming from the front of the formation, which he recognized came from the leader of the adventurers.

"Get into position, we're moving in now!"

The underlying panic in the leader's tone caught Shirou off guard. In every situation until now, the man had always issued orders with perfect calmness regardless of any surprises that came his way.

"But boss, we still haven't gathered everyone yet!" One of the other adventures protested.

"We can't wait!" The leader urgently shot back. "That Orc's a goddamn enhanced species, its stalling for time to eat!"

At the mention of the word "enhanced species", everyone stopped arguing in favor of staring blankly ahead. Shirou couldn't help but note how often this pattern has been repeating itself over the course of the night.

Those looks of disbelief were gradually replaced by expressions of abject horror. Not long after that, the entire crowd of fighters rushed ahead with reckless abandon, emitting what sounded like a jumbled mixture of determined battle cries and terrified screams.

Shirou had no clue what to make of this development, but he had a fairly good idea that something very bad was happening. So he ignored his confusion and joined the collective assault.

Goblin heads went flying and Ants were crushed. Horrific cries were let out as some of the weaker guards were trampled underfoot by Lizards and Armadillos. Even so, the outnumbered humans and demihumans pushed forward with unnerving vigor, overwhelming the monsters with superior abilities and pure, desperate tenacity.

As Shirou pushed and slashed at the obstructing monsters, his mind calmly worked to decipher the reason behind this unexpected panic.

The word "enhanced species" did spark some familiarity; it was likely brought up in one of the stories that the former adventurer had shared with him.

' _If I remember correctly, he mentioned that name while talking about a certain incident. Something about a monster that overcame its base instincts and consumed other monsters, gaining abnormal strength in the process.'_

The 'blood-smeared troll' was apparently a widely known and feared monster that took the lives of many veteran adventurers, one that necessitated the full might of the strongest Familia in Orario to finally bring down.

With that gruesome story in mind, it was no surprise that all of the seasoned adventurers here would panic to this extent at the mere mention of a monster that had the same characteristics as that troll, even if it was a surface variant.

Going by what the leader had said before, Shirou surmised that the Orc chose to recall all of the other monsters around it so that it could buy time to cannibalize and grow stronger.

But surely that alone wouldn't be enough to turn the tide? At the rate the remaining enemies were being cut down, the Orc didn't have much time left. Plus, the additional strength it could gain from surface monsters shouldn't amount to much either.

A single Lizard leapt above the line of adventurers in front of him.

Shirou twisted his waist and cut deep into the body of the creature.

As his sword carved through the rubbery flesh of the reptile, he felt a distinctly hard object resist against the blade for a split second, before giving way completely.

With its magic stone destroyed, the lizard disintegrated into fine ash, simultaneously releasing a short burst of magical energy into the air. It was something that Shirou had grown familiar with sensing over the past few hours.

Feeling the foreign energy rushing past his skin, a sudden thought occurred to the teen.

' _That's right; monsters get their strength from magical energy. So enhanced species' don't grow stronger by eating the flesh of other monsters.'_

The more his brain started to connect the dots, the more he could feel a steadily mounting sense of trepidation take hold of him.

' _They grow stronger by absorbing magical energy, by consuming_ _ **magic stones**_ _.'_

He thought back to the way that the monsters in this recent attack were strangely attracted to the energized rocks. He also recalled how all of the magic stones were being gathered in a large pile close to where the Orc was fighting.

With that realization, the meaning behind those past observations, as well as the cause for everyone's unexpected panic at the moment, finally clicked into place.

The Orc didn't need to waste its time and effort consuming the monsters around it for magical energy—it had an abundant source of pure energy right beside it.

Focusing his senses, he was able to pick up on a distinct magical signature nearby, one that was only growing noticeably stronger as time passed.

The adventurers were pushing back the monsters at a rapid pace. He couldn't tell for sure, but it would probably only take them a few more minutes to reach the Orc.

However, he was certain of one thing: By then, it would be too late.

Charging ahead, Shirou came face to face with a War Shadow.

Deftly side-stepping its knife-like claws, he brought up his blade and swiftly decapitated the monster—but didn't stop there.

Before the headless corpse could drop to the floor, he repositioned his sword and gouged deep into the chest of the shadow.

Shirou plunged his hand into the wound, ignoring the thick black liquid spurting out. After a few seconds of fumbling, he found what he was looking for.

He immediately ripped his arm out of the corpse, which turned into ash just moments later. Within his hand, dyed pitch-black by the blood of the fallen shadow, a single glowing object stood out.

Sparing no time to confirm what it was, Shirou backed away from the fighting. At the same time, he poured prana into the magic stone as fast as he could, wincing as a crack formed in his haste and released searing heat onto his palm.

Once clear of nearby obstructions, the teen planted himself firmly onto the ground, leaned back, and launched the explosive straight ahead. The dazzlingly bright stone flew in a high arc through the air before landing deep within the group of monsters, erupting in a ball of fire.

Without taking the time to survey the aftermath, Shirou moved to grasp another dropped magic stone that was lying on the floor.

That last explosion had startled both the adventurers and monsters, creating a temporary rift in the battleground as both parties backed away out of caution, and giving the teen the perfect chance to do more damage.

Within the momentary gap in the monsters' line of defense, he caught a glimpse of the main target, currently gorging itself on a declining pile of magic stones, and looking quite a bit larger and more menacing compared to when he first saw it.

Firmly grasping the three additional magic stones that he managed to procure, Shirou simultaneously infused them with as much prana as his circuits could muster up in that instant, before lobbing all three of them at once.

The stones, packed to the brim with raging magical energy, sailed through the air like radiant stars. Two of them veered away towards the left and right flanks of the still-unmoving monsters, while one was dead-set on a direct collision with the center.

With a blinding flash of light, the resulting explosion engulfed the entire mob in a fiery blaze. A huge smokescreen was kicked up as dust, dirt, and charred corpses alike were indiscriminately blown into the air.

Shirou quickly covered his face as an intense wave of heat surged through the area. Shouts of panic and surprise came in from all around him as individuals scrambled away from the sudden detonation.

While other adventurers were frantically casting their eyes about in confusion, Shirou kept his gaze firmly locked on the plume of smoke ahead, wary of any sudden movements.

From what he saw, at least one of the stones he threw landed very close to the Orc. The blast was powerful enough to incinerate regular surface monsters, so it had to have done some damage to the monster, even if it was an Enhanced Species.

A minute passed, and he saw no signs of the enemy that everyone was the most apprehensive about. As the teen continued to watch, the smokescreen started to fade, gradually revealing what lay within.

The first hint Shirou got that something was about to go horribly wrong was when a number of surviving monsters burst out of the smoke. All were running towards the direction of the broken village gate, with an unmistakable sense of terror about them.

He was just about to walk up and get a closer look, when a tiny distortion in the smoke caught his eye, along with the slight glint of a blade.

—When he next registered his surroundings, everything was a blur.

Without pausing to think, Shirou hastily reinforced his back to the breaking point.

"Gah!"

All the air in his lungs was forcibly expelled as he crashed right through a solid stone wall, and kept on going.

He could feel all manner of objects splintering apart behind him, as his body continued hurtling through the air with no signs of slowing down.

The vast majority of Shirou's rapidly fading consciousness was focused on maintaining the flow of prana required to keep his spine from cracking in two. But a small part of his mind took note of a strange, yet familiar metallic noise that reverberated throughout his body with each impact, like steel plates grinding against each other.

His momentum was finally arrested after he blasted through yet another wall, and skidded several meters across the dirt ground on the other side.

For a few seconds he continued to lie prone, desperately refilling his lungs that had been completely deprived of oxygen in a single instant.

His vision was a blur, and all he could hear from his ears was incessant ringing.

Miraculously, he was still able to move his body; albeit, every slight movement he made sent concerning levels of discomfort directly to his brain. The sharp pain that assailed him with each breath also made it clear that one or two ribs were probably broken.

He wasn't sure whether or not to be thankful of the fact that his back muscles had gone completely numb.

Slowly lifting his throbbing body up, the first thing that appeared in his gradually clearing vision was the rather large house that he had just plowed straight through.

The complete, utter wreckage of the once impressive-looking residence made Shirou recall what had happened to him.

He hadn't been able to perceive that strike at all. Undoubtedly, it was only the ingrained experience held within his current weapon that had enabled him to unconsciously raise his guard up to prevent a direct hit.

Even then, he hadn't managed to brace his body in time, and just the pure force from being sent flying had nearly been enough to kill him.

Trying his best to ignore the pain, Shirou stumbled through the demolished house with gasping breaths. Along the way, he took the chance to dump what little remaining potion he had saved up over his throbbing body; all the while lamenting the absence of that golden sheathe that had soothed his injuries countless times before.

The Orc had growth strong, frighteningly strong.

Its previous strength was but an illusion compared to its current unreasonable level of power.

As much as he dreaded the idea, he wouldn't have been surprised if all the adventurers were completely wiped out by this point.

Thankfully, his steadily recovering hearing was able to pick up on the sounds of clashing steel, which meant the fight was still ongoing.

After finally getting past the initial hole that his body tore through the house, Shirou observed the ongoing battle.

The first thing he saw was a giant green blur flitting in and out of existence, and plumes of smoke spontaneously erupting with no warning.

For a few dreadful seconds the teen was terrified that something in his brain had somehow clicked out of place from the impact, but he quickly realized that his reinforcement had merely been cut off at some point.

After directing a trickle of prana towards his eyesight, his vision immediately sharpened.

Surprisingly, the fighters were dealing with the unexpected adversary far better than he thought they would be.

Shirou had misjudged the extent to which the Orc was able to grow, but apparently he had also underestimated the other side's capability to adapt.

The majority of adventurers were standing well away from the combat zone, while only a small number of individuals were engaged in the actual battle with the final monster.

As a result of the group's quick responsiveness, there were very few casualties on the field. The few corpses that he could spot were primarily those of the village guards, who were likely less accustomed to dealing with situations like this.

The number of fatalities probably didn't even reach the double digits, which was almost unbelievable considering the strength of the foe and the number of people present.

' _Damn it_.'

The sight was repulsive to his very core. It felt like saltwater was being poured through his veins.

It didn't matter whether there were ten or a hundred—even a single death alone was proof enough of his failure, his inability to save someone in front of his very eyes.

The thought of that lit a spark within him, buried all of the pain and sluggishness under a raging inferno.

If he was unable to save those lives, the least he could do was prevent others from following.

The only thing that stopped Shirou from joining the fight himself was likely the same thing that was holding everyone else back.

The Orc might have been gradually overwhelming the elites, but conversely, that also meant the other side was keeping it at bay for now.

The enhanced monster was unquestionably far stronger, faster, and tougher than any single individual fighting against it. So the one thing that evened the scales was teamwork.

From what he could observe, each human could only just barely repel two or three consecutive blows from the monster.

Hence, when one person was fast approaching their limit, another would slip in with the slimmest of margins to take over, giving the other time to recover. Everyone else would focus on hit-and-run tactics to distract the enemy and dull its blindingly fast movements.

It was a very precise strategy that left no room for error, but enabled those fighting to just barely break even with an opponent far superior to them—a clear testament to the Familia's experience in the dungeon.

Exactly because it left no room for error, no one in the sidelines could afford to interfere. Those without the strength and skill to contend with the monster would just be meaninglessly rushing to their deaths.

Shirou himself couldn't hope to exchange more than a few blows, not with the condition his body was in after being blasted clean through a solid stone house. Even so, as things were it was just a matter of time before everything ended regardless.

With the heightened agility of the Orc, it was too risky for anyone to fully commit to a strike—and halfhearted attacks weren't going to be enough to put down the enhanced monster. It was beyond clear which of the two sides would buckle first.

This made it all the more necessary for him to do something.

Closing his eyes, Shirou momentarily shut out all outside interference, delving deep into his body and soul for what he needed to enact a miracle, one that could overturn this situation.

 _Trace—_

If fighting a prolonged battle was not an option.

— _On._

Then he would just have to finish everything in one blow.

 _Judging the concept of creation_

A blade forged not by the hands of men, but by beings beyond humanity. A weapon created for the purpose of choosing the true King of Britain.

 _Hypothesizing the basic structure_

A double-handed broadsword with a slightly curved cross guard. A glamorous design that suited an ornamental piece of art more than it did a weapon of battle.

 _Duplicating the composition material_

Befitting a decorative weapon, gold was integrated into the hilt and blade of the weapon, and numerous gems were engraved throughout the body. Despite all of that, the blade itself was strong, and more than able to withstand the test of battle.

 _Imitating the skill of its mak—BZZT_

"Ggh!"

The third-rate magus painfully clutched his head as the common feedback from an interrupted spell assaulted him.

In a bout of panic, Shirou feared that his inexperience with tracing had caused him to fail at this critical juncture. But after performing a quick analysis of his current state, he realized that the problem was far simpler than that.

"You're kidding, not enough magical energy?!"

In hindsight, this event was unavoidable from the very beginning.

He had been fighting for practically the whole night, all the while continuously reinforcing his body and expending no small amounts of prana on several magic stones—it was a given that he would quickly run himself dry.

Ever since his original magic circuits were opened, he had never once run into issues related to prana exhaustion. Hence, he had completely neglected to monitor his usage and efficiency of magical energy.

However, none of that pondering would help him in this situation.

The Golden Sword of Assured Victory was an almighty weapon that enabled him, a human, to single-handedly fend off even the legendary Son of Zeus for just a brief moment.

Perhaps all this time he had been unconsciously drawing relief from it, contenting himself with the knowledge that he could summon such a powerful blade to his fingertips should the need arise.

With the abrupt realization that such a trump card was currently out of his reach, his thoughts were thrown into disarray.

' _Should I just go in anyway?'_

No, if doing so would benefit the current situation, he wouldn't hesitate to throw away his life. But carelessly butting in was just as likely to spell disaster to the group.

Then, was standing here the only thing he could do?

Was his only option to watch as others fought in front of his very eyes and pray for a miracle to occur?

Countless questions flowed through the teens mind, but no answers came.

Here and now, he had the strength to be of use. This wasn't like the Holy Grail War where every fight was so far out of his reach he couldn't even laugh about it. There had to be something he could do.

Otherwise, for what purpose did he spend countless nights in that dark shed? For what purpose did he endlessly push past his limits to overcome that irrational War?

Stubbornly holding his thoughts together, Shirou renewed his focus on the battle at hand.

Straining his reinforced eyes, he fervently took in every single detail of the fight, as if the solution he was looking for could be found there.

Perhaps because of his unfaltering concentration, he was able to notice when it happened.

One of the attackers had slipped up.

Likely due to exhaustion, the adventurer stepped in a second too late, striking just an instant after the Orc was able to recover from its most recent attack.

The remarkably perceptive monster had sensed this mistake, its mouth contorting into a terrifying grin as it turned to stare at the interloper straight in the eyes.

The adventurer realized his error at that precise moment, but it was already too late. Without even bothering to reset its posture, the Orc twisted its body and launched an attack while its sword was still pointed towards the ground, swinging it like an oversized golf club.

The flat of the blade mercilessly smashed into the charging adventurer's chest, cancelling all of his forward momentum and sending him in the opposite direction.

Before the Orc completed its swing, Shirou reinforced his legs and shot off with a burst of speed.

In a mirror of what the teen had experienced earlier, the strike from the enhanced monster had been powerful enough to lift the vulnerable man completely off his feet, and straight towards the direction of a nearby house.

Putting strength into his legs for one final jump, Shirou leapt into the path of the man's flight.

Catching the heavily armored body with both arms, he found himself violently blown backwards by the unexpected force.

Upon landing, he forcefully dug both of his heels into the ground in an attempt to slow down. The teen soon realized that even that wasn't enough to avoid crashing into the rapidly approaching building, so he voluntarily allowed his body to tip over onto the ground.

Heedless of the dirt and stones that scraped against his exposed skin, he focused on digging as much of his body into the earth as possible, and somehow managed to halt their combined momentum just shy of the wooden wall.

Shirou let out a sigh of relief at having spared his battered back from yet another ordeal, but that momentary comfort was interrupted by a violent coughing fit.

He hastily glanced down to find the man he had just saved coughing up unhealthy amounts of blood. Even though the adventurer had been spared from crashing into the house, he had still taken a direct, unprotected hit from the cheat-like strength of the enhanced Ogre.

Even with the aid of a potion, it was unlikely that he would be rejoining the battle anytime soon.

"Just stay still for now," Shirou spoke in concern. "You're in no condition to fight."

"Y-yeah, thanks for the save," the man said gratefully, as he took several deep gulps of air in an attempt to recover his breathing. "Damn it, where's a goddamn monster like that been hiding all this time?" He loudly cursed, with anxiety openly displayed on his face.

There was no doubt the adventurer was deeply troubled about being unable to return to the battle. To begin with, there was already a painful shortage of men strong enough to fight, so losing even one person could have disastrous effects on the balance of the struggle.

"What are the chances that the rest can pull through?" Shirou tentatively asked, despite knowing full well what the answer would be.

"We'd have the luck of the gods if they could somehow hold up long enough for help to arrive," the man uttered with a grim expression. "Bad enough that the damn monster's stronger than anything you could find below the 18th floor, but it's even got that huge sword and reach to boot. Ain't no way in hell anybody's getting close enough to put it down."

Until that point, Shirou had been conversing with the man to distract himself from the bitter sense of helplessness he was feeling, but the response that he had gotten made him to narrow his eyes in contemplation.

"…Say," he slowly began. "If the sword was taken out of the picture, would they be able to deal with it?"

"Hmm?" The man murmured in confusion. "Well…yeah, I guess they would. Still wouldn't be an easy fight, but the boss and the others are plenty strong, so I wouldn't put it past them to beat it," he hesitantly concluded. "Why you asking all of a sudd…" The man's sentence trailed off as Shirou stood up and started walking ahead.

"O-oi! Kid, what do you think you're doing?! Don't go out th—!"

Behind him, Shirou could hear pained grunts from the man, along with the sound of him dropping to the ground, no doubt due to his injuries.

Ignoring the frantic protests coming from behind, Shirou continued to walk up.

Right before him was an area of absolute demise, where individuals beyond his current level were fighting with their all, where even a single stray attack could reduce him to a pile of unsightly red mush.

Drawing upon the intense concentration he had acquired throughout all his attempts to create a magic circuit, Shirou forcibly calmed his rapidly beating heart.

Digging deep within his magical reserves, he gathered together the last remaining dredges of prana that he could muster up. The third-rate magus filled every last inch of his physical body with power, for what he was about to attempt necessitated nothing less than that.

Additionally, and for the first time that night, he made efforts to reinforce the weapon in his hand.

For all of the previous occasions, the former Second Class Adventurer's sword was plenty sharp enough to get the job done, but this next task required something more.

Performing a quick structural grasp on the weapon, the third-rate magus widened his eyes in surprise upon identifying an unknown substance in the constitution of the blade. As Shirou allowed his prana to seep into the blade, he was even more surprised to find the process going smoother than he was accustomed to.

Typically he needed to fill each individual gap in the material, while fighting against a degree of resistance. But in this instance, he found his magical energy flowing almost seamlessly into the object, as if each drop was being automatically pulled towards the location it was needed in.

It was a curious detail, but one which he immediately dismissed from his mind. Anything that could aid him at that crucial moment was more than welcome.

Next he focused his strengthened vision on the Orc. He no longer had the reserves for a prolonged battle. Neither did he have the leeway to carelessly interfere and disrupt the formation of the fighters. Everything would have to be decided within one exchange.

The range of its swing, the speed of its withdrawal, the time it takes to execute an attack—pooling together the limited amount of combat insight beaten into him by Saber and gleamed from the veteran adventurer's sword, Shirou took in and analyzed as many details as he could.

After several speedy exchanges, a tremendous clang permeated through the air as the blades of monster and man collided yet again. Just as before, that noise served as the signal for the rest to rush in—yet something different happened this time.

Even as dozens of gleaming blades closed in on it, the enhanced creature made no move to defend itself. With a predatory gleam in its eyes, it raised its intimidating weapon up in the air in a stance that was clearly meant for pure offense.

Just as the first few blades penetrated through the creature's sickly green skin, it brought its blade down. No finesse, no skill, no technique. A completely telegraphed attack that everyone was able to avoid with a mile to spare.

Yet all of that was made up for by sheer destructive power.

A thunderous crack shook the air as the ground literally cratered beneath the strike. The impact alone knocked several adventurers off their feet, to say nothing of the ground that violently fragmented like the aftereffects of an earthquake.

Whether by calculation or impatience, the Orc had done something that gave it the perfect chance to deal critical damage to the opposing side. A few adventurers had managed to swiftly recover and retreat, but even more still sat dazed on the ground, with no option but to receive the finishing blow.

However, the monster wasn't the only one waiting for this moment. Before its blade had even struck the ground, Shirou had already kicked off the surface.

Soil sunk in with every step, as he forced his already-battered body to move far quicker than it ever had. His entire vision blurred and distorted, and he had to focus just to not lose sight of his target.

 _Faster!_

With every motion Shirou could hear bones creak and muscles tear, but he paid them no mind.

 _FASTER!_

The full-force swing executed by the Orc had left it momentarily open and defenseless enough for even him to take advantage. But that tiny opening wouldn't last for long. If he got within range just a millisecond too late, he would just be slaughtered along with the defenseless adventurers.

"!"

With a sickening crunch, his ankle abruptly folded in on itself, unable to bear the strain of his excessive reinforcement. Shirou soon found himself one step away from joining the men sprawled out on the floor.

' _Like hell I'd let that happen!'_

Yelling at the top of his lungs, the teen exerted even more strength on his broken foot. As if in response to his burning determination, that same metallic screeching from earlier made itself known again, and Shirou felt his shattered ankle somehow, in some ridiculous manner, click back into place.

The sudden miracle didn't come without a price, as an almost unbearable wave of pain ripped through his leg. But he pushed through the agony to make one last rush.

After what seemed like an eternity, Shirou found himself directly in front of the enhanced monster, which had only just managed to extract its embedded weapon from the ground.

Yet even with everything that had inexplicably lined up to give him this perfect opportunity, it still wasn't enough. The Orc had noticed his approach, and was already starting to swing its massive blade to swat him away like an unwelcomed fly.

Shirou was already midway through his own swing, but the towering difference in physical ability still guaranteed he would be bisected long before he could even scratch the enemy's skin.

But that didn't matter, since his target was never the Orc to begin with.

With the structure of the sword laid bare before his eyes, he had long ago grasped it: The single weakest point on the enemy's blade that had received the most impacts over the course of the battle. It wasn't much, but that tiny, distinct imperfection would be the key to victory.

However, Shirou's own meager talent would never enable him to aim for such an infinitesimal point.

So he delved further into the existence of his borrowed blade. He cut off all of his independent thoughts, and allowed his inadequately trained body to be guided solely by the experience within the reinforced weapon, betting that it, along with a hefty amount of luck, would lead him to his destination.

Inches before the monster's sword was about to split open his skull, Shirou's own weapon made contact with it.

Time seemed to stop as the two instruments of steel locked in place for a brief instant.

 _*KCCHIITTCH!*_

With a resounding shatter, the larger sword gave way to the smaller one—the colossal force that its wielder put behind the swing all but guaranteeing its destruction on contact.

The entire upper blade fragmented into innumerable shards, with several finding their way through Shirou's skin as he broke off from the single exchange.

Despite the agony of being pierced by thumb-sized steel fragments, the teen didn't so much as wince, primarily because he had far more important things to worry about—

" **GRRRRRROOOOOOAAARRR!"**

—Such as the giant vengeful monster now hot on his tail.

"Damn it!" The teen loudly cursed as he forced his already-drained body forward.

Initially his plan had been to destroy the Orc's blade, and then immediately make himself scarce during the confusion that followed. But apparently, he had underestimated just how… attached the supposed-to-be unintelligent monster was to its weapon.

Rather than focusing on the more dangerous high-class adventurers around it, the Orc was instead charging towards him and him alone, while exuding an unfathomable amount of rage that twisted its already-grotesque visage into something outright demonic.

Even more adrenaline was injected into his body, as impossible as that was, until the only thing running through Shirou's mind was how to survive the next few moments.

 _*Crack_ _*_

It seemed that his body had other plans, however, as his form abruptly crumpled with the next step he took—whatever had been keeping his broken ankle in place vanishing along with the last few drops of his prana.

He quickly realized, however, that the stroke of apparent bad luck had also saved him.

A bulging green fist tore straight through the air his head had occupied just moments prior, the wind pressure alone ripping several strands of hair directly from his scalp.

But even as Shirou stabbed his sword onto the ground to keep himself upright, there was no feeling of relief. After all, he may have avoided one blow of instant death, but there was nothing to stop more from coming.

Even if his ankle hadn't given out at that moment, he had literally nothing else to give. With a body that had been beaten, broken, and drained of both magical and physical energy, Shirou turned around and stared straight up at the towering monster behind him.

Even with the lone teen that had caused it so much trouble now standing defenseless before it, he saw no sense of glee or pleasure decorating the blood-red eyes of the Orc. Only that prevailing sense of madness continued to dictate its actions, as it raised its other arm up to extinguish the life of the single human for certain.

" **GGGRRRRROOOAAGHH** "

Bellowing out a final cry of rage, the Orc twisted its entire body and proceeded to bring down its hulking arm in what was surely an act of overkill.

With his legs refusing to obey him, all the teen could do was raise his sword up in a last act of futile defiance.

 _*SHHNNK*_

"…?"

In the final few moments of his life, Shirou was expecting to hear flesh splattering and bones splintering. So when all that came was something akin to what he would hear at a butcher shop, he was caught rather flat-footed.

Belatedly, his ears took note of how the ear-shattering roars of the creature had abruptly cut off, almost like a radio being unplugged. His eyes registered how the whole body of the enhanced monster swayed once, before toppling face down beside him, a one-handed axe lodged deeply into its skull.

A tired exhale caused him to turn back towards where the Orc had been standing.

"That was the single stupidest thing I've ever seen anyone do," a certain bearded adventurer muttered while drenched in sweat and heavily breathing. But his lips soon curled up into a slight smirk. "Well, it did also piss the thing off enough to ignore the rest of us, so I guess that evens things out."

The auburn-haired teen used what little strength he had left to clumsily smile back, before the edges of his vision darkened and he sunk into a long overdue slumber.

* * *

 _Author Notes:_

Bit of a delay for this one. Finals ended up taking more of my time than I was expecting, and I'm sorry to say that I've just been getting plain lazy over the holidays.

Sorry to all those people who still think I'm making Shirou way too weak, but I felt that this was the most realistic approach to take. Its true that the man's experienced more fighting within two weeks than what most people would experience in their lifetime, but its still just two weeks of experience.

He's definitely gone a long way in building up the proper mindset for battle, but he's still got a ways to go when it comes to actually battling, bearing in mind he's gleamed very little experience from Archer in this route. But that issue will be rectified as time goes on.

Anyway, as usual drop a comment on your thoughts and follow/favorite if you think this is worth your time, and I'll see ya'll next time, however long that may be. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

(I'll try not to stall for too long.)


	9. Chapter 9

_tap-tap-tap-tap_

"Um…"

 _tap-tap-tap-tap_

"Tulle-san, I think you should probably try to calm down."

 _tap-tap-tap-tap_

"…This isn't going to make him get here any faster, you know?"

At that resigned comment, Eina finally took a break from her agitated aimless wandering to spin around towards the animal woman behind the Jagamarukun stall.

"It been twenty minutes since he was supposed to arrive, why isn't he here yet?"

"No, like I said earlier, he's probably just tired from everything that happened yesterday. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. You've been keeping an eye on him every single day, I'm sure it's fine to let him loose a little."

…Back off? BACK OFF?! This was the same boy who very nearly wandered into the dungeon alone with nothing but torn-up rags. Putting someone like that right in the middle of a village being swarmed by monsters was nothing short of an all-out disaster! There was no way she could afford to just "let him loose a little"!

"Please don't look at me like that, it's scary."

"Why aren't you more concerned about him?! He's your coworker for heaven's sake!" Eina shot back, practically leaning past the stall that separated them.

"Well, he is a pretty capable guy from what I've seen, ahahaha…" the animal woman nervously laughed while backing away with raised hands. A second later, her eyes immediately shot open, followed by her finger raised to point straight ahead. "See?! What'd I tell you?"

Darting her head around fast enough to incur whiplash, Eina immediately took off towards the approaching auburn-haired teen as fast as her feet would carry her, oblivious to the animal woman letting out a discreet breath of relief behind her.

When the newcomer made eye contact with Eina, his eyes lit up in recognition, and he raised a hand in greeting.

"Ah, good morning Tulle-sa—ghrk?!"

"Emiya-san! Are you okay?! Did you get hurt anywhere?! Eina cried out as she grabbed Shirou's shoulders and started violently shaking him back and forth.

"W-wait Tulle-san, calm down, I'm fine, I'm fine!"

After giving the flustered teen a once over, the half-elf finally allowed herself to release her pent-up tension. "Thank goodness… I just heard about the attack on the village this morning. I thought for sure something might've happened to you while you were there. I'm so glad you're okay."

"Everything's all right. I'm more or less fine now, as you can see," Shirou comfortingly replied with a reassuring smile.

'" _Now"? What does he mean by that?'_ Eina mentally inquired, but ultimately decided to put aside the detail.

"That's true. I don't know what I was so worried about. Even you wouldn't do anything reckless in the middle of a monster attack that huge. Now you know how deadly even the weakest monsters can be, so I hope you'll tone down your actions from here on out," she lectured, unconsciously shifting back to her guild adviser persona.

"No arguments there. I definitely underestimated how strong monsters could be," Shirou lamented with a profound look of self-reflection on his face. "Well, I already suffered because of it, so I'll be sure to be more careful next time," he casually added.

"That's right, I'm glad you understand," Eina concluded with a satisfied nod.

"Mhm."

…

"Wait what?"

* * *

Currently, Shirou Emiya was trapped with a rather attractive female, inside of a rather enclosed private interview room. Normally he would have been flustered in such a situation, but the present case was an exception, as said female was currently glaring at him with the intensity of a thousand suns.

' _Why do I feel like I've been in this situation before?'_

"So allow me to clarify a few things, you suicidal blockhead."

"Yes ma'am," the suicidal blockhead meekly replied.

"You were caught up in one of the biggest recorded monster attacks on the surface in recent history, and instead of immediately rushing to the nearest shelter like every other civilian without a Falna, you chose to dive straight into the fight without the slightest hesitation."

"Yes ma'am."

"Not only that, but when an enhanced monsters of all things showed up in the middle of everything, you even attempted to fight it?"

"Yes ma'am."

In the interest of his own self-preservation, Shirou decided to withhold a few minor details, such as how the "attempt" actually involved directly clashing weapons with it and nearly getting his head lopped off.

But judging by the sound of air being steadily taken in, Shirou belatedly realized that he probably should have withheld more. Just as the teen thought a familiar sequence was about to fully reenact itself, the half-elf seated opposite to him released the breath she had taken in with what appeared to be an excruciating force of will.

In response to his no doubt openly exhibited mix of apprehension and confusion, Eina merely shot him a half-lidded, displeased stare. "…If I let myself fret over every little thing you do, I'll end up leaving a stain on the long lifespans that my kind are known for."

Shirou had no idea how to respond in a way that wouldn't disrupt her delicate emotional balance, so he wisely chose to keep his mouth shut.

"I'm honestly surprised you didn't get killed ten times over last night," Eina muttered in mild disbelief.

"We've received reports of several civilians, and even adventurers, perishing over the course of that attack, so I find it hard to believe that someone without a Falna like you managed to survive after diving straight into the middle of it."

Buried feelings sprung up again after Shirou was reminded of the lives that were lost, of the lives that he had failed to save. The frustration must have shown on his face, as Eina cast him a concerned look.

"I don't know what's going through your mind right now, but what you did wasn't something any sane person would ever think of doing. You have to consider that without a Falna, you're more liable to hinder those who are supposed to do the fighti–"

"I'd do it again," Shirou abruptly cut in.

"Huh?" The sudden interruption appeared to have caught her off guard, and she momentarily fell silent.

"If the same thing happened in front of me, I'd do it again," Shirou reiterated. "Being a burden is one thing, but standing still when I could be of use is something I could never forgive myself for."

He wasn't entirely sure what provoked him to suddenly speak those thoughts out loud, but Eina's warning reminded him of the emotions he had shelved during the heat of last night's conflict, emotions which he could not, and had no desire to repress again at this moment.

After hearing his words, Eina wordlessly stared at him with a scrutinizing gaze, and Shirou responded in kind with his own unwavering one. After what could have been an eternity, the half-elf reluctantly backed down with a resigned exhale.

"I've got a lot more to say to you, but it doesn't look like you'll be willing to acknowledge any of it the way you are now, so I'll put it aside just for today."

"…Sorry about that," Shirou apologetically said as he inclined his head.

He would never regret the actions that he decided to take, but even he had at least some inkling as to the problems he was creating for the kind guild receptionist, who by no means had any obligation to help him as much as she had been doing.

"Never mind about that, I just hope that at the very least you'll keep your word about being more cautious from now on," Eina said as she half-heartedly dismissed Shirou's apology.

"Anyway, you're free to go. I wouldn't want to keep you in here for too long after what you've just been through," the half-elf spoke as she gestured towards the exit.

Shirou stood up and bowed one last time before making his way out. Just as he opened the door to the corridor, he came face to face with a pink-haired girl in a guild employee uniform.

"Oh, sorry adventurer-san!" The girl hurriedly apologized as she moved to make way for Shirou.

"Ah, it's no problem at all," Shirou quickly replied in spite of his surprise.

Once he exited the room, he heard hasty footsteps behind him as the girl entered in his place.

"Eh? Misha? What are you doing here?" came Eina's bewildered voice.

"Eina, it's an emergency! Do you know where to find a guy named Shirou Emiya?!"

At the completely unexpected mention of his name, said guy turned around in confusion. It seemed that the sudden request for a person she just dismissed also caught Eina off guard, as she could do nothing but stare in mute surprise.

"I checked over all the records and couldn't find a single trace of him! But I just happened to remember you mentioning someone like that a few days ago. Please, you're my only hope! Until we find him, They'll make me search through the whole city! I'll die of overwork!", the girl, apparently called Misha, wailed in what appeared to be very genuine distress.

In response to that desperation, the half-elf absently pointed a single finger in his direction.

The pink-haired girl spun around faster than Shirou could visibly register, and before he knew it she had appeared right in front of him.

"Uwah!"

"THANK GOD! I thought I was a goner!"

While Shirou was still reeling from the sudden violation of his personal space, the excitable guild employee had grabbed hold of his hand at some point and placed a large, somewhat heavy leather pouch on it. Upon dropping into his hand, the bag emitted a very distinct jingling noise.

Curiosity overcoming his current confusion, Shirou tentatively opened the bag—only to have even more confusion overtake him the moment his vision filled up with pure gold.

"And that concludes my job! Ahh, what a close shave for my precious free time…" the girl muttered as she began walking away.

The two remaining occupants of the room could do nothing but gape at the bag for a few seconds, but fortunately Eina managed to regain hold of her mental faculties in time, as accustomed as she was to unforeseen situations.

"W-wait, hold on a second you idiot! You can't just drop all that in his hands and walk away without explaining anything!"

Misha abruptly stopped in her tracks.

Slowly, with almost mechanical movements, the girl turned around, her face already set into a sheepish smile.

"Ah, I forgot."

Shirou barely resisted the urge to elegantly place his face on his palm.

 _SLAP_

But clearly, the same couldn't be said for the other person in the room.

"Ahaha, ahem," the girl awkwardly laughed before clearing her throat and beginning the long-overdue explanation in a formal tone.

"The adventurers involved in yesterday's incident came over to give the full report just now. We finalized everything and handed them their reward for repelling the attack and defeating the enhanced monster, but then a little complication came up."

' _Oh crap, why do I have a really bad feeling about this?'_

Regardless of Shirou's internal panic, Misha continued speaking without pause.

"They refused to take a portion of the reward, claiming that this Shirou guy over here helped out a lot during the fight, so they left the money here behind for us to give to him."

"…"

Under normal circumstances, Shirou would have vehemently denied the excessive sum of money, especially since he himself believed he hadn't done nearly enough to warrant that much. But all of his attention was currently directed towards another, far more pressing issue.

"Say Misha…" the beautiful half-elf still seated in the room began with a cheerful smile on her face.

"Would you mind telling me a bit more about what happened?"

* * *

The dazzling rays of the midday sun descended upon Orario, the city of dreams and ambitions. The streets bustled with liveliness as adventurers and civilians alike all went about their business, eagerly anticipating what new events this day would carry along.

All except for a certain auburn-haired teenager dragging his feet through the busy streets.

' _Could this day get any worse?'_

After getting thoroughly chewed up by an infuriated half-elf, Shirou was unceremoniously spat out of Babel Tower.

Needless to say, after Eina had heard the full story behind what had happened last night, she had completely barred him from returning to work that day. Most likely having lost all measure of faith in him; the incensed guild employee had dragged him over to his workplace to personally explain the whole story.

If anything, he could at least take comfort in the sympathetic looks his coworkers threw his way while Eina wasn't looking.

Regardless, that now left him with a completely free day that he hadn't accounted for. But after just a moment of deliberation, the teen had happened upon the perfect way to make use of this extra time.

Absently brushing the hilt of a familiar sword hung on his belt, Shirou thought back to what had happened after he had regained consciousness and before the group had set off.

Upon returning to the former adventurer's house, the teen had immediately sought to return the weapon that had quite literally saved his life during the attack. He had offered to clean the blade in the owner's stead, but the man refused, and spent a good couple of minutes wiping the residual blood off the weapon and oiling it.

Once finished, he retrieved a scabbard kept within a nearby cabinet and sheathed the weapon—only to immediately hand it back to Shirou.

" _That thing was just sitting here collecting dust. You've done far more with it last night than I have for the past 10 years. I'm sure its purpose will be better served in your hands than in mine._ "

As much as Shirou attempted to protest, the man would have none of it. And so it was with that brief exchange that he had found himself obtaining an unexpectedly high-quality blade as his first weapon in this new world.

However, the weapon wasn't quite ready to go through another round of whatever bad luck Shirou would encounter next just yet. A quick structural grasp had told him all he needed to know about what his messy fighting had done to the blade last night.

All the shearing of flesh and bone had done a surprisingly light amount of damage to the weapon, but the real concern stemmed from his impromptu reinforcement of it and what followed after. Despite the mysterious properties of the sword that enabled him to easily inject prana into it, he had yet again misjudged the maximum capacity of the weapon in his inexperience.

His earlier grasp of the Orc's giant axe had revealed that it was composed of a similar, if slightly less pure material as the sword. So while the latter had ultimately triumphed against the former thanks to his reinforcement, it hadn't come out unscathed. Several hairline fractures, too minute for even the original owner to spot during his cursory analysis, branched off from the point of impact.

They wouldn't be too big of an issue now, but the damage would only get worse over time. So this unexpected block of free time Shirou found himself with was the perfect opportunity to find a place to repair it.

The only problem was, he had absolutely no idea where to begin looking.

Fortunately, he was given a rudimentary understanding of this world's writing thanks to whatever magecraft had spirited him away to this world. But that didn't mean he knew of any reputable blacksmiths who could perform a satisfactory job on the valuable weapon.

The teen had half a mind to ask for Eina's input before they separated. But he thought better of it after realizing the Half-Elf probably wouldn't appreciate him asking how to fix a weapon—after she had just finished railing into him about how he should be doing his best to avoid fighting.

Let it be known that Shirou Emiya was a man capable of reading the atmosphere, to a certain extent.

Still, making an effort to avoid that bullet had now left him aimlessly wandering the streets, hoping that he'd stumble across a decent blacksmith who wouldn't try and rip him off and/or destroy his blade by accident.

' _Hm?_ '

It was just as the teen walked past the entrance to an alleyway that he heard a peculiar sound.

Or perhaps "heard" wouldn't be the right way to describe it. It wasn't so much that his mind registered a noise that entered through his ears. Instead, it felt like whatever stimulus he had picked up on had resounded far deeper, in a part of his body he wasn't even sure how to describe.

While reflecting on anomaly this in his mind, Shirou found his body unwittingly stepping into the alleyway, drawn towards the source of that unknown "something".

As each step took him closer, he found the steady beat of that "sound" interposing with another, physical noise.

The reverberation of metal striking metal.

Before Shirou knew it, he was standing in front of a rather inconspicuous-looking entrance. The alley he was in was narrow, and everything in it was packed together to an almost suffocating degree. Despite the fact that hardly any sunlight reached this location, the surrounding area was notably hot.

The building Shirou was facing was long and narrow, with a simple door fixed onto its front. The only detail of note on the otherwise unadorned piece of wood was an intricate carving of three harmers, along with a series of letters engraved on the centermost hammer.

"Goibniu…" Shirou quietly muttered the displayed word as he moved to open the door. Immediately, his senses were overwhelmed by a sweltering heat dozens of times stronger than what he had felt outside. Most people would have been forced to step back after experiencing such an inferno unprepared, but Shirou merely squinted his eyes slightly before unhesitatingly entering.

The sound of hammers striking anvils came in full force. A variety of tools and materials were hung along the walls, waiting to be used by the smiths scattered throughout the interior, hard at work on their individual projects. Flames billowed out of forges, casting a dim, amber glow throughout the room that somehow managed to remain just as dim as the alleyway outside.

"Welcome ta tha Three Hammers Forge, what can we do for ya lad?"

A burly looking dwarf seated close to the entrance paused in his work to greet him.

"Hi there, I'm looking for someone to help repair this sword," Shirou spoke while unfastening the sheathed weapon from his belt.

"Ah see, did ya make any prior arrangements with us before?"

"No, sorry I haven't. I just happened to find this place for the first time."

"Hrmm..." The dwarf stroked his beard as his expression twisted slightly in discomfort. "Well sorry tah say lad, but we're a wee bit booked right now. Ahm surprised ya managed to find this place on your own, but 'fraid we can't take ya any time soon. Ah recommend finding another place."

Judging by the clamor of activity pervading every corner of the room, what the dwarf said was likely no exaggeration. If anything, it was an understatement.

"Oh, I see. I'll take my leave then, sorry for wasting your time."

While Shirou was slightly crestfallen at being rejected, he figured it wasn't that much of a loss considering it was a complete whim that led him to this area in the first place.

Holding back a dejected sigh, he began making his way back to the dim alleyway to resume his search.

"Before you leave, would you mind giving this run-down smithy another try?"

All of a sudden, an unfamiliar deep voice made Shirou stop in his tracks. Turning around, he found that the gaze of everyone else in the room had likewise been drawn to the source of it.

Stood all the way at the end of the room, an old man was leaning against a door frame with his arms crossed. His figure was shrouded in the shadows cast by the embers of the furnaces.

"B-boss, what's da matter?" The dwarf from earlier hesitantly spoke.

"Oh, nothing in particular. I just saw you trying to chase this young man away, and figured it'd be a shame to lose a paying customer," the old man uttered as he began to take slow, confident steps towards Shirou.

As he got closer, the outline of his figure gradually became clearer. Compared to many of the other blacksmiths in the forge, the man was decidedly on the short side. Yet his build was solid and robust, without any unnecessary parts, leaving behind nothing but pure, lean muscle.

For lack of a better way of explaining it, it almost seemed like his body was shaped for the very purpose of forging weapons, and nothing else. Coupled with a full grey beard that concealed his entire mouth, the man looked very much like a dwarf, although his smaller frame made it entirely clear that he was human.

Or at least it would have, to anyone but Shirou.

Standing this close, the third-rate magus was all but certain that the entity before him was anything but an ordinary human, or even living creature for that matter. The magical sixth sense that he perceived through his sense of smell was screaming out at him, in a way not unlike what he experienced when standing before servants.

Oblivious to his internal turmoil, or perhaps intentionally paying no heed to it, the old man sized Shirou up, his gaze lastly falling towards the sheathed sword still held in the teen's hand.

At that point, the other occupants of the room finally appeared to break out of their stupor, as the dwarf quickly interjected in a frantic voice.

"Boss, ya can't be serious! We're already swamped up ta our knees in requests, we ain't got the time for another!"

"Well you won't have to worry then, since I'll be taking this one up personally," the stout man casually interjected without batting an eye.

"Wha-?!" For the second time in those few minutes the dwarf was left speechless.

The old man turned to look at the slack-jawed individual with a questioning stare.

"Is there a problem?"

"N-no, of course not. If thats what tha boss wants…" The dwarf quickly stopped talking and returned to his work, although his slightly harried hands made his internal state of mind clear for all to see.

Without any further complaints, the old man silently motioned for Shirou to follow him. As Shirou trailed behind, he found himself the uncomfortable recipient of several not-so-discreet looks, but did his best to ignore them. It was obvious from everyone's reactions that this was not a regular occurrence. For better or worse, Shirou had somehow managed to garner the attention of a very significant person without so much as lifting a finger.

Once the two of them reached a small side room connected to the forge, the old man closed the sturdy door, leaving the room quiet save for the muffled impacts of metal. Taking a seat on a small stool likely meant for work, the old man let out a tired breath.

"Well then, I don't believe I've introduced myself. My name is Goibniu, I'm the god of this Familia."

The completely casual way in which he revealed himself as a god didn't surprise Shirou nearly as much as he thought it would. Probably because he already experienced it first-hand the moment they met.

"My name is Shirou. I'm just a regular citizen, as inadequate as that makes me feel."

Goibniu raised an eyebrow in response. "Is that so? Not every day I see a regular citizen walking around with such a high-quality blade."

The fact that the god could immediately tell such a thing, despite the blade being completely concealed by a solid sheathe, significantly upped Shirou's impression of him. There was always the possibility that the blacksmith was just throwing those words out there without actually being certain of them. But somehow, the complete confidence in which the deity made his assessment of the weapon was enough to convince Shirou otherwise.

"This wasn't originally mine, it was given to me by a former adventurer."

"Is that so?" Goibniu uninterestedly muttered, seemingly content with leaving things as is.

"Well, pass it along, I'll see what I can do with it."

Readily complying, handed the sheathed sword over to the professional blacksmith. Upon receiving it, Goibniu grabbed both ends of the weapon before gradually unsheathing it. The moment the blade was fully withdrawn, his eyes widened slightly, which was the biggest indication of surprise Shirou had ever observed from the otherwise unflappable god.

"Interesting… this really is a quality weapon. It's not every day I come across a longsword made of pure mithril—even in my line of work," the god spoke in a tone of undisguised praise.

"Mithril?" Shirou repeated upon hearing the unfamiliar word.

"Ah, you must be new to Orario. Mithril's a type of ore that can only be found in the dungeon. It's hardness and utility as weapon material are top tier, and it also has the added attribute of absorbing and conducting magic," the deity explained.

"Not many Familias or individuals have the resources needed to craft a longsword entirely from it. That former adventurer must have been really fond of you to part with something like this for free."

With the details provided by Goibniu, it felt like the mystery behind the unexpected weapon Shirou found himself with was finally solved. The reason why he struggled to fully grasp the weapon initially was because it was made of a metal not inherently part of the world he originally came from, and the relative ease in which he was able to reinforce the blade could be explained by its inherent magic-absorption capabilities.

Even disregarding the extremely useful magic-based properties of it, if the metal constituting the sword truly was as rare and valuable as Goibniu claimed it was, then Shirou definitely had to express his gratitude to the former adventurer again the next time they met. Perhaps even make it a point to pay back some of the absurd cost the weapon likely took to obtain.

"Hmm?" Goibniu's voice drew Shirou's wandering thoughts back to the matter at hand.

It appeared the god had finished his initial analysis of the sword, as he was now staring at a particular point of the blade—the same point that Shirou had identified to be damaged through his prior structural grasping.

"This is strange. For a weapon like this to have been damaged in such a way is…" Goibniu muttered curiously, before turning towards Shirou with an inquisitive glance.

"I might have put it through a bit more than it was meant to take," Shirou ambiguously replied with a hint of embarrassment.

The unamused stare Goibniu directed towards him spoke of just how content the god was with the teen's explanation.

"...No matter, it's not the place of a blacksmith to pry into what a customer does with their weapon," the god eventually relented.

"I would appreciate it if you didn't do this too often though," Goibniu added with a somewhat exhausted tone. "When it comes to damaging weapons that aren't supposed to get damaged, I've already got my hands full with the Sword Princess."

"Wallenstein-san?"

Having his most frequent customer get mentioned all of a sudden had caught Shirou completely flat-footed.

"You know her? Certainly might explain where you got this particular habit from then," Goibniu dryly spoke without taking his eyes off the sword.

"I don't recommend looking up to her as a role model though," the deity quickly added. "Her sword skills are undeniably top-class, but treating your weapons the same way she does hers would make any blacksmith you go to weep. I've seen it happen before."

"…I'm having a hard time believing that."

Try as he might, Shirou just couldn't reconcile the image he had of the airheaded girl, with someone fierce enough in combat to break supposedly unbreakable swords with nothing but brute force.

"Well then believe this: When it comes to that girl, first impressions aren't worth very much."

"Eh?"

Shirou couldn't help but notice that there seemed to be a further implication in the god's otherwise casual response. But before he could decide to further question him, Goibniu sheathed the sword in his hands with an audible _clink_ , as if to signify the end of the conversation.

"I've finished looking over your weapon. I can get it back into top form for you by the end of the week."

"Thanks, it would be a great help if you could," Shirou replied, deciding to let the topic drop.

He assumed that the matter was already settled with that, so he was surprised when Goibniu continued to speak.

"Is there anything else you need? With how much you've managed to do to the blade in such a short time, I'd imagine you could do with some armor if you don't already have a set."

Again Shirou had to marvel at how much information the blacksmith deity was able to gleam just from looking at his weapon. He gave his answer after putting some thought into it.

"I appreciate the suggestion, but unfortunately I just recently moved to Orario, so I don't have a lot of money on me right now."

Without saying anything, the grey-haired deity cast his eyes down towards a certain pouch strapped to the teen's belt, with a hint of gold visible through its opening. An object that so happened to completely disappear from the teen's mind ever since a certain traumatizing incident earlier that day in Babel Tower.

"…I'll take a look at what you have, if you don't mind."

* * *

As Shirou wearily stepped out of the double doors, he looked up in time to see the sun just about to disappear behind a nearby building. Finalizing matters at the forge had taken a lot longer than he had expected, but he supposed it was better than being left with nothing to do for the rest of the day.

"Well, I guess it's about time to head back."

On his way to the closest main street, Shirou suddenly realized that he hadn't eaten dinner yet, or even lunch for that matter.

With all of the extra money he now found himself with, he had enough leeway to splurge a little on food. But after everything he went through today as well as the lingering fatigue from the previous day, he honestly didn't feel up to the task of searching for a decent place to eat at, which he had an inkling wouldn't be an easy task.

With that in mind, he decided to just draw from the never-ending stock of leftover potato snacks he had back in his room. Continuing to subsist on such an unhealthy diet, even when he now had other options, didn't fare well with the teen. But he was honestly too exhausted at the moment to care.

"…"

All of a sudden, his aching feet stopped in their tracks.

It was just by pure chance.

That line of thought, along with part of the conversation he had with Goibniu made Shirou remember something he had said to someone a few days ago.

From an objective point of view, it wasn't a very important detail. Certainly not something as big as a promise or obligation that warranted delaying the chance to rest his worn-out body. There wasn't even any guarantee that sparing the effort to act on those words now would yield anything in the end.

But still, before he was even aware of it, Shirou found his body moving not towards his home, but to the stall that he had spent arguably the longest amount of time in since coming to this world.

* * *

Another day had passed, and rays of moonlight were beginning to fall on the chaotic mishmash of towers that made up the Loki Familia residence.

Inside the tower leading to the main gates, a set of footsteps could be heard as a certain adventurer descended the staircase. To any outside observer, the otherwise impassive expression on Aiz Wallenstein's face wouldn't seem like anything out of the ordinary. But to those who knew her at least somewhat well, her ever so slightly faster footfalls might have seemed odd.

When it came to the girl who went at her own pace for anything not related to battle, to see her in a rush to get somewhere on a perfectly peaceful day was a rare sight.

" _Sorry, but I won't be free over the next two days."_

At the time the boy had said those words, she hadn't paid them much mind. He was clearly not in a position to do anything about it, and she wasn't selfish enough to demand that he stay. She had been perfectly content with regular potato snacks up until then, so she figured going back to them for just two days wouldn't pose much of a problem.

Oh how wrong she was.

Immediately after leaving the dungeon the following day, her body had automatically moved towards the stall that the boy was no longer even in. By the time her thoughts caught up, she had already ordered a potato snack and put it in her mouth.

Perhaps subconsciously she was expecting the snack to have the same flavor she had grown accustomed to over just two days. Immediately after her mind had registered the taste, she was assaulted by an overwhelming sense of disappointment—no, despair. It was like going to bed after a hard day's work, fully expecting to be welcomed by the feeling of soft feathers, only to realize that someone had filled the mattress with stones instead.

The day after that wasn't much better. While she was thankfully able to mentally prepare herself enough to avoid the same worst-case scenario, she was still left with a gaping hole in her expectations.

And so, the third day had arrived. The spoils from the dungeon were particularly large this time, so she had to help her party carry some of it back to the residence, despite vehement protests from the lower-rank members.

Now, she was finally free to satisfy the craving that had been baring its fangs at her like a persistent monster!

"Yo, Aizu-tan! Where ya off to so late?"

"…"

Hearing the familiar voice of her goddess coming from behind, Aiz turned around.

"Geh-! W-what's the matter?"

For some strange reason, the moment she did so Loki immediately recoiled back in what appeared to be fear. Even when Aiz tried to think of a reason for that, her mind was strangely clouded over. It didn't help matters much that the longer she looked at her goddess, the more she had an urge to cut something.

"…I'm just going out for a snack. I'll be back soon."

"O-oh, I see. Is it jagamarukun?" The deity hesitantly asked.

"Mhm."

"…I know how much ya love them, but there's no need to look at me like that," Loki squeezed out.

Thinking that was all her goddess had to say, Aiz started walking away.

"Say Aizu-tan…"

Desperately suppressing the feelings of impatience welling up inside, Aiz once again stopped and faced her goddess.

"What?"

"Ya wouldn't happen to be heading to the same place ya were at before our meeting a few days ago, would ya?"

"…Is there a problem?" Aiz slightly tensed up.

Her memories from that day were a little hazy, but apparently she had been left in a state that warranted more than a little concern from a number of people. There was a chance that Loki would try and stop her from going.

"Nope, I was just wonderin' if I could tag along with ya."

"…?"

While Aiz was still confused over the sudden request, Loki continued to speak.

"After ya came back all blank-faced and stuff, it got me real curious bout' what got ya so worked up. Now's the perfect chance for me to give that place a try, don't cha think?"

"…It's up to you," Aiz replied after some consideration. As long as she could have her long-awaited snack, she didn't see any problem with letting her deity accompany her like usual.

"Whoppee!" Loki exclaimed, all traces of her earlier trepidation vanishing like the frivolous deity she was. "I've got a late-night date with Aizu-tan! C'mon, lets hold ha–blrgh!"

"If you do anything weird, I'll leave you behind."

"…Yes ma'am."

With that, the blonde once again started making her way out of the mansion, now alongside a red-haired goddess who was gingerly rubbing a visible handprint on her face. Aiz was relieved that she was finally free to go.

But she hoped that her troublesome goddess wouldn't cause any problems for the boy along the way.

* * *

 _Author Notes:_

Welp, it's been a while I guess. I've actually been pretty busy lately, so I haven't had much time to write. Even when I told myself I'd sit down and work on the story, I wasn't able to focus on it for any long periods of time. So apologies for the unexpectedly long wait (again).

Thanks to whoever's still sticking around after all this time. I'll try and start getting in the habit of writing consistently again, so with any luck the next chapter will come out a lot sooner. No promises though, because I might end up having to spend more time on assignments that get thrown my way.

As usual, drop a comment on what you think so far if you're up to it.

Till' next time.


End file.
